Alan Ayckbourn News

Asking what it means to be a woman making art and how it's changed over the years, this new production from Manchester-based Stute Theatre fuses the stories of the Brontë sisters with drama, live looped music, spoken word and vocal harmonies. Three actors come to the stage 150 years after the onset of Brontë-mania, each with their own ideas about how to tell the stories.

A new adaptation of a classic novel, an adaptation of a favourite British movie, Alan Ayckbourn's 87th play, a time-bending romance and a new version of Cinderella have been announced for 2022 by Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre.

Self-devised by the company, it is engrossing, entertaining, and immersive.

Casting is announced for the UK tour of Two Cigarettes in the Dark, a brand new play by Stephen Wyatt, directed by Alan Strachan, designed by Simon Higlett and produced by Jonathan Church Theatre Productions and Cambridge Arts Theatre. The production will play Theatre Royal Brighton from 4-9 April 2022 as part of a UK Tour. 

Casting is announced for the UK tour of Two Cigarettes in the Dark, a brand new play by Stephen Wyatt, directed by Alan Strachan, designed by Simon Higlett and produced by Jonathan Church Theatre Productions and Cambridge Arts Theatre.

On November 25, Michael Pennington will pick up his staff and books and don his robes once more, to return to the Jermyn Street Theatre stage to play Prospero in this critically hailed production of Shakespeare’s final play. 

Final casting is announced for the London premiere of Christopher Durang's Tony Award-winning Best Play comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, directed by Walter Bobbie.

We know that there is an etiquette when watching a theatrical performance, but it's fair to say that in the past eighteen months many of us have grown used to watching all our entertainment solely on a screen where chatting about the performance, eating loudly and getting up mid-speech is the norm. It seems that some of this behaviour may have drifted into our theatres. Or was it ever thus?

Stirring Up Sheffield is the extraordinary story of a group of visionaries who came together to build a revolutionary thrust stage theatre in Sheffield, fifty years ago. It was a daring venture, the high watermark of experimentation in post-War British theatre and caused a battle amongst the UK's theatrical elite.

2020 was the year that wasn't for pantomimes.  Hundreds of live shows up and down the land were cancelled because of the COVID pandemic, and many were only performed to online audiences.  This Christmas, panto is back with a vengeance!

The White Plains Performing Arts Center has announced the cast for its upcoming Mainstage production of Masquerade: The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, playing October 8-24.

After more than three decades leading creative operations for one of America’s largest theaters, Tony Award-winner Robert Falls is ending his tenure as Artistic Director of Goodman Theatre. Today, Falls announced his intention to step down next summer at the completion of the current 2021/2022 Season.

Today, Jermyn Street Theatre announces its first full season since it reopened with the Footprints Festival earlier this year.  The Encounters Season, which runs from mid-September to the end of the year, features some of the greatest on-stage talent in the UK, in a line-up that includes Sîan Phillips, Michael Pennington, Oliver Ford Davies and Stephen Boxer.

London Classic Theatre today announce extended tour dates for their production of Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn. The production will now conclude at New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme 20-23 October, where the show will be specially worked into the round, and the three sets reimagined for the space.

Alan Ayckbourn’s comic masterpiece of social climbing in 1970s suburbia fuses a potent mix of farce and black comedy.  The play centres around three married couples, three kitchens and three Christmas parties!

Tickets for the films are £12 each, with a group ticket available at £15. A version of The Girl Next Door with added bonus features including interviews with Alan Ayckbourn and Kevin Jenkins costs £20. Learn more about the productions and how to view them here!

Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s bestselling novel tells the story of a lawyer obsessed with a curse that he believes has been cast over his family by the spectre of a ‘Woman in Black’. He engages a young actor to help him tell his story and exorcise the fear that grips his soul.

Middle-aged Shirley Valentine, a bored housewife from Liverpool, takes a holiday to Greece with a friend who promptly abandons her for a holiday romance. Left alone, she meets the charming taverna owner, Costas.

Booking opens at 10am on Friday 16 July. Tickets, priced from £10, are available from the box office, by phone, or online. Learn more here!

Kicking off this mini-season is an epic all-day, all-star performance, in which Artistic Director Tom Littler dramatises Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey as a staged reading in six parts by a company of eleven actors and six guest-star narrators.