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The following schedule of productions has been provisionally announced
for our Spring/Summer 2009 season. All details are subject to change.
March 25 – April 4, 2009 (main house)
Hobson’s Choice
by Harold Brighouse
Directed by Vanessa Comer
Henry Horatio Hobson is the domineering owner of a shoe shop in
Salford, Manchester, in the 1880s. His daughter Maggie and her two
younger sisters Alice and Vickey have worked for him for most of their
lives without wages and are eager to be married and out of the shop
– not a problem for the two younger girls but, by Victorian
terms, Maggie is considered over the hill at the ripe old age of 30!
Determined not to be left on the shelf, she persuades her
father’s gifted but unappreciated shoemaker, Willie Mossop, into
marrying her and setting up in a shop of his own.
A brilliant, delightful and sometimes poignant comedy,
Hobson’s Choice is regarded by many as one of the
classics of the British stage. An irresistible story brimming with
rich characters who come to life in this hugely funny, touching and
compelling drama.
April 29 – May 9, 2009 (main house)
Vincent in Brixton
by Nicholas Wright
Directed by Marian Kemmer
Brixton, 1873. A brash young Dutchman, working for the London branch
of an international firm of art dealers, rents a room in the house of
an English widow. Three years later, he returns to Europe on the first
step of a journey which will end in breakdown, death and immortality.
Based on the true facts of Vincent van Gogh’s early life in
London, and first produced at the National Theatre in 2002, this
highly acclaimed play is about the transforming effect of love, sex
and artistic adventure on unformed talent. It traces the birth of
genius.
June 3–13, 2009 (main house)
Never the Sinner
by John Logan
Directed by Tim Willis
The Leopold and Loeb murder case has been the subject of at least
three films (including Hitchcock’s Rope) and over
fifty books. Nathan Leopold and William Loeb were brilliant, rich
Chicago teenagers in the 1920s who savagely murdered a 14 year old boy
– for no good reason. When the body was found and they were
linked to the crime, they confessed. Their families hired the
celebrated lawyer and orator Clarence Darrow to save their necks.
Darrow failed to understand or explain his clients’ motivations,
but nevertheless succeeded in saving the boys’ lives by a
different approach.
John Logan’s gripping play causes us to consider what we dare
not contemplate: that the building blocks that made this murder
possible are present (if hopefully suppressed) in each of us.
June 20–27, 2009 (studio)
tHe dYsFUnCKshOnaLZ!
by Mike Packer
Directed by Roy Donoghue
In 1977 when punk was at its height, Billy Abortion’s band mates
left him bleeding to death in a Copenhagen hotel room. In 2007 Billy
is back from the dead and stacking shelves. There was no way tHe
dYsFUnCKshOnalZ! would ever reform. Until now...
30 years on from their notorious split, an American corporation wants
to pay the band a small fortune for their punk anthem Plastic
People, but everyone has to be in on the deal. So how much will
it take for the angriest man in music to sell out?
tHe dYsFUnCKshOnaLZ! is a funny, loud and anarchic play
which premiered in 2007 at the Bush Theatre. The Loft production will
be touring to the Edinburgh Fringe for a week in August 2009.
July 8–18, 2009 (main house)
Brassed Off
by Paul Allen
Adapted from the screenplay by Mark Herman
Directed by Gus MacDonald
In the Yorkshire town of Grimley, there has always been a coal mine,
just as for the last hundred years there has been a brass band. Tory
economic policies, however, are closing mines around the country in
favour of nuclear power; and Grimley appears to be next on the list.
Despite band leader Danny’s insistence that “it’s
music that matters,” some of the men are ready to quit the band
– until the appearance of new member Gloria, who gives the
otherwise all-male group a boost as they continue to perform and
compete while the threat of pit closure remains very real.
As they face the loss of their livelihood, is the band’s music a
defiant expression of the human spirit? Or simply irresponsible
escapism? And whose side is Gloria really on? Find out in the stage
version of Mark Herman’s funny, moving and hugely popular film.
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