Cast and Creative Team Set For PARTY SEASON By The Wardrobe Ensemble
Party Season will have its World Premiere in Northampton as part of the theatre's Made in Northampton season ahead of a UK tour.
Royal & Derngate, Northampton have announced the full cast and creative team for Party Season, The Wardrobe Ensemble's newest play. Party Season is a razor-sharp new comedy about privilege, party rings and the pressures of being a parent. It is a sugar-fuelled, bobbin-winding fever dream where class identities collide, social niceties unravel, and underslept parents do their best to hold it all together when three children's parties take place across one weekend.
Party Season will have its World Premiere in Northampton as part of the theatre's Made in Northampton season ahead of a UK tour. It will run from Thursday 2 to Saturday 11 April with a Press Night on Thursday 9 April before touring to Oxford, Worthing, Salford and Bristol.
Long-term collaborators with Royal & Derngate, the multi-award-winning creators of The Last of the Pelican Daughters and most recently, Mog's Christmas are also celebrating their 15th anniversary this year. Founded in 2011 The Wardrobe Ensemble's first production, RIOT at The National Theatre's Shed was heralded as the dawn of a new age for British theatremaking. Closely followed by 1972: The Future of Sex and Education, Education, Education which subsequently transferred to the West End, the collective of nine who devise all their work as a group quickly gained a name for their energetic and irreverent plays that dissect the twenty-first century experience.
Party Season is co-directed by Royal & Derngate's Artistic Director (and Wardrobe Ensemble founding member) Jesse Jones (Top Gs Like Me, Breaking the Code) and The Wardrobe Ensemble's Helena Middleton (Mog's Christmas, Royal & Derngate). The cast includes Wardrobe Ensemble members Tom England, Jesse Meadows and Ben Vardy (all seen most recently in Mog's Christmas), James Newton (Moby Dick, Simple8 in association with Royal & Derngate), and Kerry Lovell (The Last of the Pelican Daughters, Royal & Derngate). Other cast members are Jacade Simpson (Get Up, Stand Up, West End) and Fowzia Madar (Henry V, Insane Root Theatre at Temple Church).
The Set and Costume Designer is Bronia Housman (The Wizard of Oz, Salisbury Playhouse), the Lighting Designer is Chris Swain (Kin, Gecko Theatre Company), the Sound Designer is Beth Duke (The Jolly Christmas Postman, Royal & Derngate), and Tom Brennan, another founding member of The Wardrobe Ensemble, is Dramaturg for the production.
The run in Northampton will include a relaxed performance, offering a welcoming environment for parents and carers with babes-in-arms and anyone who would benefit from a more informal theatre setting.
Tour Dates:
Royal & Derngate, Northampton
Thu 2 – Sat 11 April
The North Wall, Oxford
Tue 28 April – Fri 1 May
Worthing Theatres, Worthing
Fri 8 - Sat 9 May
Lowry, Salford
Tue 12 – Sat 16 May
Bristol Old Vic
Thu 21 – Sat 23 May
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