Finborough Theatre Announces 2021 Reopening Season

Finborough Theatre has announced its reopening season, running September-December 2021.

The autumn season opens with the final two weeks of the production that was playing to sell-out houses when the theatre closed down last March - the first new UK production for 40 years of Paul Kember's Not Quite Jerusalem, an award-winning comedy-drama from 1980, the year the Finborough Theatre first opened, in celebration of our 40th anniversary year. Set on an Israeli kibbutz in 1979, Mark Lawson of The Tablet said of our 2020 production: "Stormingly performed by a cast inhabiting their characters with absolute authenticity, and ingeniously realised on the Finborough's tiny stage by Peter Kavanagh, this is a bruisingly funny, sharply intelligent evening." Not Quite Jerusalem plays 14-25 September 2021.

The UK premiere of Jordan Hall's romantic comedy for the end of days, How To Survive An Apocalypse, plays 28 September-23 October 2021. Jen and Tim are a successful urban millennial couple who become convinced that the end of the world is coming. As they start hoarding supplies and learning to hunt, both are forced to imagine the apocalypse without the love of their life. A tender, hilarious, and touching story about dreams, love and the desire to survive. Another in the Finborough Theatre's acclaimed discoveries of new plays from Canada, How To Survive An Apocalypse premiered at the Firehall Arts Centre, Vancouver, where it broke all box office records.

The season continues with the European premiere of Alana Valentine's The Sugar House, the UK debut of a multi-award winning Australian playwright, which plays 26 October-20 November 2021. Focusing on three generations of remarkable women, The Sugar House is a deeply moving family drama that distils the conflict of how we are raised against what we choose, and how embracing the future sometimes means losing forever what created us. A hit at Sydney's renowned Belvoir Street Theatre in 2018, The Sugar House was nominated for Best New Australian Work in the Sydney Theatre Awards, and now receives its first production outside Australia at the Finborough Theatre.

The season comes to an end with the Great Britain premiere from David Ireland, the multi-award-winning author of Cyprus Avenue. Coinciding with the centenary of the partition of Ireland and the foundation of Northern Ireland, Yes So I Said Yes is a blackly comic, ferocious, dystopian satire about what it's like to feel alone in a place where everyone else is conspiring to erase you and your history. It runs from 23 November-18 December 2021.

The theatre has also announced the fourth consecutive year of the ETPEP Award, a playwriting prize for new UK playwrights who work in the theatre industry, run by the Finborough Theatre in association with the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust (ETPEP). Entries open on 8 November 2021, and close on 30 April 2022. For 2022, the prize money has been increased to an £8000 top prize, alongside 10 £400 runner up prizes. The winner will also receive a development relationship with the Finborough Theatre, a staged reading performance of the winning play, and publication by Salamander Street, independent publisher of theatre, performance and live art.

The Finborough Theatre has also announced the longlist for the ETPEP Award 2021. All these longlisted writers will be awarded £300, and one will go on to win the main prize of £6000 in September this year, and receive a staged reading on 8 November 2021.

The winning plays - all judged anonymously until the final interview stage - are:
A Far Cry From Home
The Brown Doll
The Fishmonger
Ghosts Of Spirits
Guinea Pigs
Like. Share. Kill
Love Underground
Moonfeed
Muddy Knees
Service
We Go Again

For more information, please visit www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

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