Yorkshire will be the central theme in York Theatre Royal’s new season which runs from February until August. All of its in-house productions and many visiting shows will be in some way Yorkshire-related.
The first in-house show is iShandy written by Richard Hurford and directed by Artistic Director, Damian Cruden. It is very, very, very loosely based on the novel Tristram Shandy by Yorkshire author Laurence Sterne. In the 300th anniversary of his birth, this bawdy, irreverent and quite frankly bonkers production shows what happens when members of a teacher’s Book Club meet to discuss the latest ambitious read in their season of Yorkshire classics, the insurmountable Tristram Shandy, but no-one can quite remember who chose it and where and who exactly is the elusive Mr Shandy?
The season will end with The Legend of King Arthur, written by Yorkshire playwright Mike Kenny and directed by Damian Cruden, in which the whole of the theatre will be transformed into Camelot.
There will also be a new play by Mike Kenny in the Studio: Bin Men (14th – 25th May), a co-production with atjc, is aimed at children 5+ and features movement, recycling and puppetry.
Angels & Insects (11th April – 4th May), adapted and directed by Associate Director, Juliet Forster from the story Morpho Eugenia by Yorkshire born AS Byatt, this production uses live music, magic and illusion.
In the summer, the Globe Theatre is presenting its newest productions at the theatre before taking them back to its base in London. The first part of The Wars of the Roses, Shakespeare’s Henry VI parts 1, 2 & 3, will be at York from 26th June – 13th July and will give the York audience an opportunity to see all three plays (sometimes on the same day) Harry the Sixth, The Houses of York and Lancaster and The True Tragedy of the Duke of York combine in Shakespeare’s powerful rendering of a country racked by civil war. The concluding part of The Wars of the Roses, Richard III, produced by York Theatre Royal and Nottingham Playhouse, will form part of the Autumn season.
Among many visiting productions will be The Woman in Black (based on the novel by Scarborough-born Susan Hill, The 39 Steps (developed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds) and Yorkshire-based Northern Broadsides with Rutherford and Son.
Commenting on the season, Damian Cruden said, “With York and Yorkshire as our inspiration, we knew we would have a wealth of talent, stories and creative voices to enable us to offer a rich programme of theatrical experiences. We have over 50 different productions in the next six months so the hallmark of this season is its huge variety created by the many people who have contributed to our vision of a theatre that responds and reflects the community.”