Howard Brenton News

Nuffield Southampton Theatres (NST) celebrates their nominations for three awards in the UK Theatre Awards 2018. The world premiere of Howard Brenton's The Shadow Factory, has been nominated for a UK Theatre Award in the Best Design category; Streetcar Named Desire, a co-production with Theatr Clwyd and English Touring Theatre, has been nominated for The Renee Stepham Award for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre; and the NST City opening campaign has been nominated in the Achievement in Marketing and Audience Development category.

In celebration of the bicentennial of the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Little Fish Theatre presents Bloody Poetry by Howard Brenton. Opening September 27 at Little Fish Theatre and directed by Ovation Award winner and Little Fish Theatre Artistic Associate Stephanie Coltrin, Bloody Poetry plunges into the bohemian lives of Lord Byron, his mistress, and the Shelleys, and enables the audience to enter their summer Villa - a place where the poets take refuge from the upheaval of their country and turn creative writing into a collective practice of subversive intent and revolutionary ambition.

Casting has been announced for Bathsheba Doran's Parents' Evening, which receives its European premiere in a new production directed by Stella Powell Jones at Jermyn Street Theatre this October. Peter Hamilton Dyer (Mrs Orwell - Proud Haddock Southwark Playhouse, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare's Globe/Broadway, Midsummer Night's Dream - RSC) and Amy Marston (Broken Glass - Offie Nominated Best Actress - Watford Palace Theatre, A Small Family Business - National Theatre, Don John - Kneehigh) join forces in this searing and highly acclaimed two- hander.

Jermyn Street Theatre announces casting for the world premiere of Alice Allemano's About Leo, the opening production in their Autumn Season. The cast of four will comprise Eleanor Wyld as journalist Eliza Prentice (Hamlet - RSC UK/US Tour, The Alchemist, Don Quixote and Doctor Faustus - RSC, Misfits - C4, Black Mirror - C4); Nigel Whitmey as prolific surrealist Max Ernst (The Crown Series 3 - Netflix, The Red Barn - Royal National Theatre, Other People - Royal Court Theatre and Saving Private Ryan - Film), twice Olivier Award nominee Susan Tracy as the elder version of Leonora Carrington (Anna Christie and Three Sisters - RSC, Cyril's Success - Finborough Theatre, A Day by the Sea - Southwark Playhouse) and Phoebe Pryce as Leonora Carrington in her earlier years ( A Passage To India - Royal & Derngate / Park Theatre, The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall - Octagon Theatre Bolton/Theatre Royal York, The Merchant Of Venice - Shakespeare's Globe/Lincoln Centre)

Eliza Prentice - millennial, Londoner, wannabe journalist - has arrived in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead. She is armed with a Dictaphone, a family connection, and a lot of questions. But the greatest living Mexican artist, Leonora Carrington, doesn't give interviews. She won't discuss her work. And she doesn't talk about Max.

Following his hugely successful and highly acclaimed first year as artistic director, Tom Littler is marking the start of his second year at the helm with a season of new work celebrating rebellious spirits. This includes the first UK production by award-winning British/American playwright Bathsheba Doran, the world premiere of a play about the maverick surrealist, Leonora Carrington, the revival of a modern Canadian classic and a rip-roaring, spine-chilling, body-snatching Christmas comedy.

Since they published their first title, Mrs Klein by Nicholas Wright, alongside its National Theatre production in 1988, Nick Hern Books (NHB) has gone from strength to strength. The company now boasts over 1500 titles on their list, and a staff of thirteen based at their London office in Shepherd's Bush. In honor of their 30th birthday the company threw a party to celebrate. Check out the photos below!

Juilliard Drama begins its inaugural year under the leadership of Obie-winning director Evan Yionoulis, Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division. Current acting director Richard Feldman will resume his role as associate director and faculty member. The 2018-19  season features fully staged productions showcasing Juilliard's Group 48 acting students in their fourth and final year in the program.

The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) will begin previews for a limited eight-week run of the Abbey Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre's acclaimed production of CYPRUS AVENUE on Saturday, June 2. The new play, written by David Ireland and directed by Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone, features Stephen Rea, who last performed at The Public in 2008 in Sam Shepard's Kicking a Dead Horse. The run at The Public follows encore engagements at Dublin's Peacock Stage at the Abbey Theatre (April 30-May 19) and the MAC in Belfast (May 23-26). CYPRUS AVENUE will run through Sunday, July 29 in The Public's LuEsther Hall, with an official press opening on Monday, June 25.

Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Long Day's Journey Into Night  comes to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts for a limited three-week engagement from Friday, June 8 through Sunday, July 1. Richard Eyre's acclaimed Bristol Old Vic production stars Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons(Brideshead Revisited, Reversal of Fortune,  'The Borgias') and Olivier Award winner and Oscar nominee Lesley Manville(Another Year,  'Harlots,' Phantom Thread). Matthew Beard (The Imitation Game, The Riot Club), Rory Keenan (BBC's 'War & Peace,' 'Peaky Blinders') and Jessica Regan (reprising the role as Cathleen from the 2016 Bristol Old Vic production) round out the ensemble cast.  

Yale Repertory Theatre (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) presents KISS by Guillermo Calderon, directed by Evan Yionoulis, April 27-May 19, at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street). Opening Night is Thursday, May 3.

The European premiere of Gracie by multi-award-winning Canadian playwright Joan MacLeod plays at the Finborough Theatre for nine Sunday and Monday evenings and Tuesday matinees from Sunday, 29 April 2018 (Press Night: Monday, 30 April 2018 at 7.30pm).

Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Theatr Clwyd and English Touring Theatre today announce casting for their co-production of Tennessee Williams' masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire. 2017 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award winner Chelsea Walker directs Nicole Agada (Woman/Nurse), Will Bliss (Steve), Dexter Flanders (Mitch), Kelly Gough (Blanche), Amber James (Stella), Patrick Knowles (Stanley), Marai Louis (Eunice) and Joe Manjon (Pablo/Doctor/Paperboy). The second production in the inaugural season at NST City, A Streetcar Named Desire opens at Nuffield Southampton Theatres on 28 March with previews from 23 March, running until 31 March. The production will tour the UK with English Touring Theatre ahead of opening at Theatr Clwyd, where it plays from 15 March until 2 June, before returning to NST City.

Juilliard today announced that Obie-award winning director Evan Yionoulis, currently professor in the practice of acting and directing at Yale School of Drama and a resident director at Yale Repertory Theatre, will become the school's Richard Rodgers Director of Drama at Juilliardstarting with the 2018-19 academic and performance season. The Juilliard Drama Division, celebrating its 50th anniversary this season, offers a program that encompasses one of this country's most respected conservatory educations for actors as well as highly successful pre-professional mentoring for playwrights.

The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) will present the Abbey Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre's acclaimed 2016 production of CYPRUS AVENUE, a new play written by David Ireland and directed by Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone, featuring Stephen Rea, who last performed at The Public in 2008 in Sam Shepard's Kicking a Dead Horse. Following encore engagements at Dublin's Peacock Stage at the Abbey Theatre (April 30-May 19) and the MAC in Belfast (May 23-26), CYPRUS AVENUE will begin previews for a limited eight-week run on Saturday, June 2 and run through Sunday, July 29 in The Public's LuEsther Hall, with an official press opening on Monday, June 25.

Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director) announces a three-week extension of the sold-out US premiere of the Olivier Award-winning Royal Court Theatre production of Hangmen. The critically-acclaimed production will now play through Sunday, March 25th, 2018.

Nuffield Southampton Theatres (NST) has announced a special one-off event with EastEnders icons Anita Dobson (Angie Watts) and Lorna Fitzgerald (Abi Branning) on 25 February at Nuffield Southampton Theatres, City. The event will be hosted by BBC South Today presenter Sally Taylor MBE.

Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Theatr Clwyd and English Touring Theatre today announce casting for their co-production of Tennessee Williams' masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire. 2017 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award winner Chelsea Walker directs Nicole Agada (Woman/Nurse), Will Bliss (Steve), Dexter Flanders (Mitch), Kelly Gough (Blanche), Amber James (Stella), Patrick Knowles (Stanley), Marai Louis (Eunice) and Joe Manjon (Pablo/Doctor/Paperboy). The second production in the inaugural season at NST City, A Streetcar Named Desire opens at Nuffield Southampton Theatres on 28 March with previews from 23 March, running until 31 March. The production will tour the UK with English Touring Theatre ahead of opening at Theatr Clwyd, where it plays from 15 March until 2 June, before returning to NST City.

Proud Haddock's The Dog Beneath The Skin will star Pete Ashmore (Arms and the Man, Watford Palace Theatre; Private Lives, Mercury Theatre; Treasure Island, Birmingham Rep) as Alan Normanand Cressida Bonas (Mrs Orwell, Old Red Lion Theatre, Southwark Playhouse; An Evening With Lucian Freud, Leicester Square Theatre; The Great Gatsby, Leicester Square Theatre) as The Dog.

Twenty-five of Southampton's residents are coming together to perform in the community chorus as part of the world premiere of Howard Brenton's new play The Shadow Factory which opens this week.