Complicité Theatre Company Announces 2018 Programme
By: BWW News Desk Oct. 05, 2017
Complicité today announces programming for 2018 - in January the company will stage a reimagined version of A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, its collaboration with performance artist Bryony Kimmings. Kimmings will lead the company in this reworked production performing across the UK before a tour to Australia.
This will be followed by the multi-award winning The Encounter which tours Europe following a return to the Barbican for a three week run from mid-April.
2018 sees the development of the Complicité Associates scheme - a new programme to support artists making a step change in their career. The Wardrobe Ensemble (2017 Fringe First winners) join Bryony Kimmings who was the inaugural associate when the scheme was launched last year.
Also announced today, and in reaction to the 2016 EU referendum result, the company will reintroduce the accent on the company name.
Judith Dimant - Complicité's Executive Producer:
"We launched the Complicité Associates programme in 2016 to support artists to make a step change in their careers and guide them as they explore different ways of working. The second Complicité Associate will be The Wardrobe Ensemble. They are a dynamic and exciting young company formed in Bristol and who remind me of the young ensemble company that Complicité was in the late 1980s and 1990s.
We were honoured that the The Encounter received a Special Tony Award for Sound Design earlier this year. Following a Broadway run and world tour we will be back at our London home, the Barbican.
We were deeply saddened by last years' result of the UK's EU referendum and are keen to acknowledge our pride in our European roots and all the European partners that we work with. We are, therefore, re-introducing the use of the accent on our name as a small token of solidarity with our European family".
A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer
Complicité Associates and Bryony Kimmings
Written by Bryony Kimmings and Brian Lobel with Kirsty Housley
Music by Tom Parkinson
Directed by Kirsty Housley
Originally a Complicité Associates co-production with the National Theatre in association with HOME Manchester.
When performance artist Bryony Kimmings was approached by Complicité to create a new show, the invitation came from producer Judith Dimant - who had just received her cancer diagnosis. Never one to shy away from creating art from life, Bryony asked Judith if she wanted to make a production about cancer. What followed was a baptism of fire, and an unexpected journey into the 'Kingdom of the Sick' - following patients, meeting doctors and learning from world experts. What Bryony didn't know is how far into the Kingdom she would fall.
First seen in 2016 at HOME, Manchester, Exeter Northcott and the National Theatre, the production will be revived and re-worked for UK and Australian touring in 2018. Kirsty Housley, Co-Director of The Encounter and long-term Complicité collaborator will direct, with writer Bryony Kimmings performing in the production.
A Pacifist's Guide... will blow everything you think you know about cancer out of the water. This funny and moving show will look behind the poster campaigns and pink ribbons at the reality of cancer: newfound friendships, pain and death, mundane treatment cycles, hairlessness and scars...with songs.
A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, Complicité's collaboration with performance artist Bryony Kimmings will embark on a UK tour to Liverpool Playhouse, Northern Stage Newcastle and the Belgrade Theatre Coventry before touring to Australia.
2018 Tour
Liverpool, UK - Playhouse: 26 January - 3 February?2018
Tickets on sale from: 13 November 2017
https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/
Newcastle, UK - Northern Stage: 7 - 10 February 2018
Tickets on sale from: 9 November 2017
Coventry, UK - Belgrade Theatre: 14 - 17 February 2018
Tickets on sale from: 23 October 2017
http://www.belgrade.co.uk/
Canberra, Australia - Canberra Theatre Centre: 28 February - 3 March 2018
Tickets on sale from: 13 November 2017 single tickets on-sale
https://canberratheatrecentre.com.au/show/a-pacifists-guide-to-the-war-on-cancer/
Melbourne, Australia - Malthouse Theatre: 7 - 18 March 2018
On general sale 4 December 2017
http://malthousetheatre.com.au/whats-on/a-pacifists-guide-to-the-war-on-cancer
Sydney, Australia - Seymour Centre: 22 - 29 March 2018
On general sale 11 October 2017
https://www.seymourcentre.com/
Age guidance: 14+
Bryony Kimmings
Inspired by the taboos, stigmas, anomalies and social injustices around her, Bryony Kimmings is a performance artist creating multi-platform art works to provoke change.
The work centres around outlandish 'social experiments' that Kimmings conducts with intrigue and wholehearted fearless gusto. Kimmings sets her sights on the impossible and unconquerable, and turns the unspeakable into the years' hottest topic - from retracing an STI to its source (Sex Idiot), to her boyfriend's depression (Fake It 'Til You Make It - Best Theatre Award Fringe World Perth 2015, Best Theatre Award Adelaide Fringe Festival 2015, Herald Angel Award Edinburgh 2015), to her search for positive role models for her teenage niece (Credible, Likeable, Superstar, Role Model Fringe First Award winner).
Her work has toured across the world including: Melbourne International Comedy Festival (Australia), National Theatre (UK), Southbank Centre (UK), Lisinski Operahouse (Croatia) and Fusebox Festival (Texas).
Complicité Associates
In 2016 Complicité launched the Complicité Associates - a new programme which sees the Company commissioning and producing new work from brilliant theatre makers and artists, supporting them as they explore different ways of working.
Performance artist Bryony Kimmings was the inaugural Complicité Associate, and A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer was its first production.
Bryony Kimmings on Complicité Associates:
"Complicité's unbelievable commission allowed me to take the almost impossible step from small-scale theatre to large-scale. Not only did it allow me that, it did so in a safe, supported and positive environment. That kind of opportunity to dream big, to be exposed to such a market and to paint bigger pictures on a stage than you ever dreamed has literally changed my life."
The second collaborator to join Complicité Associates from 2018 will be The Scotsman Fringe First Award and The Stage Edinburgh Award for Best Ensemble winners The Wardrobe Ensemble. The company was formed in 2011 out of a pilot training programme run by the Bristol Old Vic Theatre, 'Made In Bristol'. The programme aimed to serve as a stepping stone from the Bristol Old Vic Young Company (of which they were all previously members) to the professional world. Since 2011 The Wardrobe Ensemble have made four full company shows, RIOT, 33, 1972: The Future of Sex and Education, Education, Education, as well as seven shows for families and young audiences.
The Wardrobe Ensemble on Complicité Associates
"The project we'll begin developing with Complicité in 2018 is a Wardrobe Ensemble take on the family genre, continuing on from and interrogating the likes of Shakespeare, Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, The Simpsons and Transparent. We are interested in how the things you inherit from your family tell you who you're supposed be, and where you're supposed to place yourself in the wider world.
The support, expertise and experience Complicité is offering will be invaluable as we develop our company from studio to mid-scale and beyond. The Associates programme encourages us to think bigger than we ever have before, but also to experiment and play with ideas."
The Encounter
Complicité / Simon McBurney
Complicité returns to the Barbican, London in 2018 with Simon McBurney's spell-binding solo performance, The Encounter following an acclaimed Broadway run and global tour. The Company was last seen at the Barbican in 2017 with Beware of Pity, a co-production with The Schaubühne, Berlin.
The Encounter (premièred at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2015) tells the true story of National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre lost in a remote area of Brazil in 1969, which leads to a startling encounter that was to change his life.
In this solo performance, Simon McBurney threads scenes of his own life with details of McIntyre's journey plunging the audience into a visceral inner voyage. As McIntyre's mesmerising tale reaches its climax, this extraordinary performance asks some of the most urgent questions of today: about how we live and what we believe to be true.
This multi award-winning production (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, The Stage, The Evening Standard and Tony Award winner) uses a ground-breaking binaural sound design to plug-in to the power of the imagination, transmitted direct to the audience through provided headphones.
2018 Tour
Paris, France - Odeon Théâtre de l'Europe: 29 March - 8 April 2018
On sale now: http://www.theatre-odeon.eu/en/2017-2018/spectacles/encounter
London, UK - Barbican: 14 April - 5 May 2018
On sale from: Priority Members booking opens 2 Nov. Public booking opens 10 Nov.
To be the first to hear when the Barbican's new season is on sale, sign up to the newsletter here:[Embed: https://tickets.barbican.org.uk/eticketing/register.asp?news=news]
Antwerp, Belgium - DeSingel: 9 - 12 May 2018
On sale now: https://desingel.be/nl/programma/theater/simon-mcburney-complicite-the-encounter
Berlin, Germany - Schaubühne: 17 - 20 May 2018
On sale: yet to be announced
Moscow, Russia - Golden Mask Festival: 25 - 27 May 2018
On sale: yet to be announced
About Complicité
Founded in 1983, Complicité is an interNational Theatre Company based in London led by Artistic Director Simon McBurney (OBE) and Producer Judith Dimant (MBE). The company has won over fifty major theatre awards worldwide. Complicité's recent work includes A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, The Encounter, Beware of Pity and The Master and Margarita. Alongside its productions, Complicité runs an extensive Creative Learning programme with recent projects including Like Mother, Like Daughter and Tea.
Simon McBurney has created and acted in more than 30 productions for the company. His directing credits with Complicité include The Encounter, Beware of Pity, The Master and Margarita, Shun-kin, A Disappearing Number, Measure for Measure, A Minute Too Late, The Elephant Vanishes, Strange Poetry and The Street of Crocodiles. Other directing credits include The Kid Stays in the Picture, All My Sons on Broadway and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui with Al Pacino in New York. Opera credits include The Rake's Progress produced by Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and The Magic Flute and A Dog's Heart, both produced by De Nederlandse Opera and English National Opera in collaboration with Complicité. As an actor Simon has appeared in many ?lms and TV including: The Conjuring 2, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, The Theory of Everything, Magic in the Moonlight, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Last King of Scotland and JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy.
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