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The following schedule of productions has been provisionally announced
for the opening of our 2008/2009 season. All details are subject
to change.
September 17–27 (main house)
Glorious!
by Peter Quilter
Directed by Steve Smith
This very funny and touching play (which had a successful tour and
West End run starring Maureen Lipman during 2005/6) is about Florence
Foster Jenkins, ‘the queen of the sliding scale’ – a
real New York socialite in the first half of the twentieth century who
believed, all evidence to the contrary, that she could sing opera.
The play is set in 1944, when Florence engages a young accompanist
(improbably named Cosme McMoon), and follows her progress through
recitals and a recording session to a sell-out concert at Carnegie
Hall.
October 7–11 (studio)
In Camera (Huis Clos)
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Directed by Hugh Sorrill
Joseph Garcin, Inès Serrano and Estelle Rigault are dead and
consigned to spend eternity together in Hell – a modernist
sitting room with three sofas and no mirrors. Garcin, a pacifist
journalist, ran away from his call-up to the army. Inès, an
arid man-hater, manipulated and exploited all those around her.
Estelle, a society girl, drowned her newborn baby in order to maintain
her hedonistic lifestyle. In this self-service torture chamber, the
only racks are those they created for themselves through their choices
when they were alive; the only hellfire that generated by the friction
between their flawed characters.
In Camera, a one-act play that is both darkly comic and
emotionally intense, brilliantly lays out the principles of
Sartre’s existentialist philosophy – that as we are
condemned to be free, only our acts during life can define our essence
and only then through the eyes of others.
This is a new translation of the play by Hugh Sorrill especially for
performance in the Douglas Ford Studio.
October 22 – November 1 (main house)
The Way of the World
by William Congreve
Directed by William Wilkinson
A high society romantic comedy of sexual intrigue and avarice that
changed the face of English comedy writing. The barbed wit is
exhilarating and timeless, but it is driven by passion and energy and
enriched with depth of character – Oscar Wilde on speed!
December 1–13 (main house)
The Wizard of Oz
The MGM version with songs by Harold Arlen & Yip Harburg
Based on the stories by L Frank Baum
Directed by Wendy Miller
Musical direction by Matt Bramhall
Choreography by Tracey O’Callaghan
Our December production is to be a spectacular family musical
– L Frank Baum’s timeless fable The Wizard of
Oz, complete with Harburg and Arlen’s much loved songs
from the classic MGM film version.
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