Brits Off-Broadway News

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, Nottingham-based New Perspectives brought high quality theatre to village halls and arts venues in rural areas: now, they have devised a novel way of reaching isolated rural audiences through a six-part drama written on a series of specially designed postcards.

From a Celtic warrior imprisoned on the banks of Stratford Upon Avon, to a plague ravaged town in Derbyshire via a sacred pagan site in West Cornwall, this new audio series invokes the hidden stories imprinted on ten different locations around the UK.

As the shutdown continues, BroadwayWorld is keeping you up to date on the latest announcements and updates from New York's Off-Broadway theatres. 

Due to the impact of the novel coronavirus, it is with a heavy heart that 59E59 Theaters announced that the 2020 Brits Off Broadway festival has been canceled. The 15th annual season of new British theater was scheduled to begin on April 14.

The award-winning East Midlands company offer local practitioners a year-long programme of development

59E59 Theaters will present the US premiere of IT'S TRUE, IT'S TRUE, IT'S TRUE, written by Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens, directed by Billy Barrett.

59E59 Theaters (Val Day, Artistic Director; Brian Beirne, Managing Director) welcomes the US premiere of THE INCIDENT ROOM, written by Olivia Hirst and David Byrne and directed by Beth Flintoff and David Byrne. Produced by New Diorama Theatre and Greenwich Theatre for Brits Off Broadway, THE INCIDENT ROOM begins performances on Thursday, April 23 for a limited engagement through Sunday, May 24. Press Opening is Wednesday, April 29 at 7:00 pm. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Friday at 7:00 pm; Saturday at 2:00 pm & 7:00 pm; Sunday at 2:00 pm, with an added performance on Sunday, April 26 at 7 pm. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison). Single tickets are $25 - $70 ($49 for 59E59 Members). Tickets are available by calling the 59E59 Box Office at 646-892-7999 or by visiting www.59e59.org. The running time is 140 minutes, including intermission.

59E59 Theaters presents the US premiere of WILD SWIMMING, written by Marek Horn and directed by Julia Head. Produced by FullRogue for Brits Off Broadway, WILD SWIMMING begins performances on Tuesday, April 14 for a limited engagement through Sunday, May 10.

59E59 Theaters (Val Day, Artistic Director; Brian Beirne, Managing Director), will welcome the US premiere of A SUPER HAPPY STORY (ABOUT FEELING SUPER SAD), written by Jon Brittain and directed by Alex Mitchell, with music by Matthew Floyd Jones. Produced by Silent Uproar and James Seabright for Brits Off Broadway, A SUPER HAPPY STORY (ABOUT FEELING SUPER SAD) begins performances on Tuesday, April 14 for a limited engagement through Sunday, May 3.

New Diorama Theatre has announced the programme for Brits Off Broadway this spring, hosting the finest Off West End theatre on American soil. This festival is co-curated with New York's 59E59 and takes place at the Drama Desk Award-winning Midtown theatre from Tuesday 14 April to Sunday 28 June.

Through physical theatre, visual art and live improvised music, one of Europe's most distinctive live artists, Thibault Delférière, takes on the great philosophical ideas of the human spirit. Born with cerebral palsy, the Belgian artist has fashioned a radical style of painting and performance that is unique, powerful and unsettling. The Spirit will comprise of three new performances, that will evolve out of each other to reflect the development of the human spirit from servitude to freedom. The ambitious trilogy marks the Belgian artist's second collaboration with New Perspectives' Artistic Director Jack McNamara following their 2017 BE Festival show Sisyphus, which won the Mess Award and has been invited to perform at the Sarajevo International Festival this year.

A seminal work of Jewish culture or an act of traitorous libel? Indecent explores the origins of the highly controversial play The God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch. We follow the path of the artists who risked their careers and lives to perform it in this deeply moving play accompanied by a small live klezmer band.

Nottingham-born Dame Rosemary Squire has become the first patron to join the East Midlands touring theatre company New Perspectives. Known for touring cutting edge international work to venues ranging from theatres to rural village halls, New Perspectives have firmly established themselves over more than forty years as a leading force in the small-scale touring. Rosemary Squire's endorsement of New Perspectives comes swiftly after their highly successful staging of the hit Nigerian play The Fishermen in the West End.

FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, will present a special celebratory concert to mark the 10th anniversary of the musical Yank! opening off-Broadway. When this romantic gay love story set during WWII opened in 2010 at the York Theatre it was a surprise hit, garnering rave reviews and a raft of award nominations (Best New Musical and Score from the Outer Critics Circle, Outstanding Musical by the Lucille Lortel Awards, and 6 Drama Desk nods, including Best Musical, Music and Lyrics).

Christmas at the Unicorn continues the theatre's hugely successful tradition of producing thrilling, imaginative and visual theatre for all the family.  

Direct from a sold-out Edinburgh Festival Fringe run, Nicola Wren's one-woman show Superstar comes to Southwark Playhouse's Little space for a four-week festive run.

In a production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre, the acclaimed multi award-winning American play by Jacob Marx Rice, Chemistry opens at the Finborough Theatre in its European Premiere for a four-week limited season on Tuesday, 29 October 2019 (Press Nights: Thursday, 31 October and Friday, 1 November 2019 at 7.30pm).

BAFTA and Olivier award-winning playwright debbie tucker green's drama about relationships, power and sex tourism will tour for the first time in a new production from East Midlands theatre company New Perspectives. trade is set on a Caribbean island and tells the story of three women, each distinct from the others. As the sun beats down, the drinks are poured for tourists and men flitter in and out of the picture, their three very different stories emerge. On the surface, they have little in common: the youngest is visiting for the first time, another lives here permanently and the last woman is a regular visitor. But despite their apparent differences, it gradually becomes clear their lives are all shaped by the same thing: transactions.

New Diorama Theatre today announces its new season with a diverse and multi-talented range of companies forming a hugely ambitious 2019-20 programme.

London Classic Theatre today announce their UK tour of Harold Pinter's No Man's Land, with the company's Artistic Director Michael Cabot directing Nicholas Gasson, Joel Macey, Graham O'Mara and Moray Treadwell. The new production opens at Hull Truck Theatre on 12 September, with previews from 5 September at Oldham Coliseum, and visits 22 venues in total before the tour concludes at Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells on 2 November.