New CHERRY ORCHARD, A MONSTER CALLS Adaptation & More Set for 'Year of Change' at Bristol Old Vic
By: BWW News Desk Nov. 08, 2017
Tom Morris and Emma Stenning today outlined the 2018 programme of work from Bristol Old Vic, under the banner Year of Change, which was suggested as a theme for 2018 by Roger Griffith of Bristol Old Vic Associate Company, Ujima Radio.
Bristol Old Vic's aim for 2018 is not just to reopen a brand new Front of House and Studio Theatre, thereby completing its multi-million pound redevelopment project, but also to renew its own relationship with the city, both as a place of entertainment and as a place where the most important concerns of the day can be explored, contested, discussed and understood.
A PROGRAMME OF TRANSFORMATION
Tom Morris today revealed Change as the governing theme for the year, pointing to a context of unprecedented political, social, economic and environmental changes in our world. Exploring some of these ideas, he announced a series of major productions which will play at Bristol Old Vic across the year.
This will include:
- A brand new translation of The Cherry Orchard from Rory Mullarkey in March. Directed by Michael Boyd, celebrated former Artistic Director of the RSC, for the first time directing a play by the literary love of his life: Anton Chekhov. This mournful comedy, Chekhov's final masterpiece, reels from farce to heartbreak as it maps an insecure world on the brink of seismic change. Written by an artist at the height of his powers and nearing the end of his life, it bridges the divide between the longing to hold onto what is familiar, and the irresistible lure of the new. It will be produced in co-production with the Royal Exchange Theatre, and designer Tom Piper will reconfigure Bristol's 250 year-old auditorium into an 'in-the-round' space. On general sale 17 Nov. The production will transfer to Manchester in Spring 2018.
- The return of Mayfest, curated by Bristol Old Vic Associates MAYK, brings the change of innovation to a city which thrives on it. This year, Mayfest will once again take over the city with some of the best and brightest theatre from around the world. Bristol Old Vic is delighted to host the festival's flagship production in the theatre where Mayfest began back in 2002.
- In May, we present the first stage adaptation of Patrick Ness' transformative insight into love, loss and hope, A Monster Calls. Commissioned by Matthew Warchus (alumnus of Bristol Old Vic) this production forms part of the 200th anniversary of our 'mother' theatre company, The Old Vic, London. This brand-new production is created by Bristol Old Vic Associate Artist Sally Cookson, whose successes with Peter Pan and Jane Eyre (both of which originated at Bristol Old Vic) have won her a global reputation.
- The ongoing partnership with Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the summer will be further developed into a three-way collaboration with our new Associate Company, Diverse City. As the theatre industry changes to reflect the diversity of its performers and audiences, the Theatre School's graduating class of 2018 will create a new, professionally integrated production with Diverse City. Speaking at the launch, Emma Stenning said: "Over the last two years we have been thrilled by the reinvigoration of the relationship between Bristol Old Vic and its sister company the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. To be now in a position to develop this further by working with the incredible Diverse City is very special. Their brilliant and enlightening work with us so far has helped us to change the way we think about accessibility and integration on stage and off."
- In September, Bristol Old Vic will throw open the doors of its brand-new Front of House redevelopment with Tom Morris directing the first stage adaptation of Joe Simpson's memoir Touching the Void, an international bestseller and BAFTA-winning film sensation, looking at personal change in its most vivid and catastrophic form. The heart of the story is Joe Simpson's mental battle as he teeters on the very brink of death and despair in a crevasse from which he can't possibly climb to safety. Also unforgettable in the story is the appalling dilemma of Simon Yates, perched on an unstable snow-cliff, battered by freezing winds and desperate to rescue the injured Simpson, who hangs from a rope below him. Knowing that they will both ultimately fall into the void, he makes the critical decision to cut the rope, forever changing the lives of both of them. Tom Morris directs a Bristol Old Vic, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Royal & Derngate Northampton and Fuel co-production which also brings award-winning writer David Greig back to Bristol for the first time since his college days. On general sale 17 Nov.
- In October, Bristol Old Vic will present the joyous Shakespearean comedy, Twelfth Night. This brand new production will be co-produced with the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and directed by The Lyceum's Associate Director Wils Wilson (The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart). Wilson's bold and playful style will bring a fresh energy to Shakespeare's mischievous story of identity, gender and love in all its forms. On general sale 17 Nov.
- And what better way to finish the year off, than with the greatest comedy of change in English literature, A Christmas Carol, depicting the archetypal story of a wicked man who looks at his wasted and cruel life and resolves, successfully, to change everything about it! (Creative team to be announced in January). On general sale 17 Nov.
- And as our theatre itself reveals a changed entrance and a changed welcome to the city, 2018 will also see Bristol Old Vic opening a new Studio Theatre, dedicated to new and emerging work. It will be Bristol Old Vic's telescope into the future of theatre, providing a new home to Bristol Ferment (which has been supporting artists of Bristol and the region for almost a decade) and a space for young people to make and watch inspiring work, both through the award-winning Bristol Old Vic Young Company and the Engagement team's city-wide collaborations. A full Studio programme will be announced in Spring 2018.
THE POWER OF CHANGE
When Roger Griffith first suggested 2018 as a Year of Change, he was inspired by the anniversaries of some significant and powerful advocates for change; by the 50th anniversaries of the assassination of Martin Luther King and the Black Power salute and the 70th anniversary of the voyage of the Windrush, to which we add the centenary of women's suffrage and the bicentenary of the birth of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
As Bristol Old Vic looks to its future, we are also re-examining our relationship with our past and, alongside many others in the city, resolving to look afresh at Bristol's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, which made it so wealthy and contributed so strongly to many of its most beautiful buildings, including our theatre.
Bristol Old Vic's ambition as a theatre is to be a place where the city can hold itself, its history and its future to account, and where those histories can be re-understood, so we are pleased that our Year of Change can also accommodate this powerful and important conversation.
We are therefore also announcing a major new play about the slave trade, The Meaning of Zong, by Giles Terera, jointly commissioned by the National Theatre and presented and developed with partner theatres in Liverpool, Glasgow and London. It will be presented in workshop form in October 2018 and fully staged in 2019.
These performances will sit alongside a series of conversations curated in collaboration with Bristol's Festival of Ideas, and will be introduced by a series of City Conversations, jointly organised by The Bristol Post, Ujima Radio and Bristol Old Vic. These conversations will be on topics related to the city's commemoration of, and attitude towards, the transatlantic slave trade. The first conversations will happen in venues across the city with the final conversation held in the theatre.
Speaking at the launch today, Tom Morris said: "Liberal-minded Bristolian folk like me are often reluctant to talk about the slave trade. When drawn into conversation we tend to bemoan its atrocity and condemn it as an outright wrong, but we moderate our moral judgment by saying that people thought differently in the eighteenth century, that the transatlantic slave trade was a fact of life at that time, that we should be careful not to judge the past by today's standards, because our eighteenth century forbears simply didn't see it as wrong.
"In the research for Giles Terera's play The Meaning of Zong, I have discovered that this opinion is startlingly false. A close reading of the primary sources shows that many of those directly involved in the trade knew very well that it was wrong, but found it too difficult politically, economically, and socially to stop.
"So part of the conversation we are going to have connects at root with the role which Emma and I hope our theatre can have in the future in this city. If we are brave enough to judge the people who were involved in the transatlantic slave trade in this city by our own standards, then it becomes possible to judge ourselves by their standards too. It allows us to look at ourselves and our role in the world and ask: what are the things we are doing which we know to be wrong, but which we keep doing, because it is socially, politically and economically difficult to stop doing them? Then we can work out together how we can generate and share the courage and the vision, TO MAKE THOSE THE THINGS WHICH WE START TO CHANGE IN 2018."
LISTINGS:
1 Mar - 7 Apr 2018
A Bristol Old Vic and Royal Exchange Theatre co-production
THE CHERRY ORCHARD
Translation Rory Mullarkey
Director Michael Boyd
Designer Tom Piper PRESS NIGHT: Thursday 8 March, 7pm The tide of change is coming. Madam Ranyevskaya's liberal world of priviledge and pleasure is beginning to show cracks, but she and her family live on in denial. Lopakhin wants to rescue Ranyevskaya. The hard-working son of one of her family's serfs, his new-found wealth can offer shelter and security to the woman he has loved since boyhood, but it will come at a high price. Meanwhile, revolution hangs in the air, the poor and hungry are pushing at the doors, and the tutor Trofimov predicts a tumultuous change for everybody. Chekhov's final masterpiece is full of wild humour and piercing sadness in this fresh, funny and honest new translation by award-winning playwright Rory Mullarkey. A portrait of changing times, it maps the bittersweet tensions between the desperate longing to hold onto what is familiar and the restless lure of the new. A civilised and complacent culture is on the brink of collapse... Michael Boyd, lauded former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was a trainee director in Moscow at the start of his career, and only now directs his first Chekhov play for Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Exchange. With a unique 'in the round' design created by Tom Piper (designer of the poppy installation at the Tower of London in 2014), the theatre will be transformed into a full circle of seating, allowing audiences to experience every part of this rich and rewarding masterpiece up-close and from every angle.Kirsty Bushell (King Lear, Chichester Festival Theatre; Antigone, Barbican) and Jude Owusu (A Tale of Two Cities, Regent's Park; Julius Caesar, RSC) lead the ensemble in this vivid new production. The production will transfer to Manchester in Spring 2018. THEATRE
7.30pm, 2.30pm (SELECTED THU AND SAT MATS)
£35.50-£7.50
www.bristololdvic.org.uk / 0117 987 7877 @BristolOldVic #BOVCherry
10-20 May 2018
MAYFEST
The Mayfest 2018 programme will be announced in the New Year.
31 May-16 Jun 2018
An Old Vic production in association with Bristol Old Vic
A MONSTER CALLS
WORLD PREMIERE PRODUCTION
Inspired by an original idea from Siobhan Dowd
Devised by the Company
Directed by Sally Cookson PRESS NIGHT: Please note the official press night will be in LONDON on 17 July
Local press: Thursday 7 June at 7.30pm 'Stories are wild creatures, the monster said. When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?' Thirteen-year-old Conor and his mum have managed just fine since his dad moved to America. But now his mum's very sick and she's not getting any better. His grandmother won't stop interfering and the kids at school won't look him in the eye. Then, one night, at seven minutes past midnight, Conor is woken by something at his window. A monster, ancient and wild, has come walking. It has come to tell Conor tales from when it walked before. And when it's finished, Conor must tell his own story and face his deepest fears. Patrick Ness' extraordinary and heart-breaking tale, A Monster Calls - international bestseller and major motion picture - is brought to the stage for the first time in a powerful new adaptation by visionary director Sally Cookson (Jane Eyre, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty). On publication, A Monster Calls became a firm favourite with children and adults alike with its dazzling insight into love, loss, hope and healing. It garnered huge critical acclaim, including an unprecedented double win of the Carnegie and Greenaway Medals for outstanding children's literature and illustration (Jim Kay, Harry Potter).
Suitable for ages 10+ THEATRE
7.30pm, 2.30pm (SELECTED THUR AND SAT MATS)
£39.00-£7.50
www.bristololdvic.org.uk / 0117 987 7877 @BristolOldVic #OVMonster Previews at The Old Vic, London from 7 July 2018, official press night 17 July 2018
June-July 2018
A Bristol Old Vic, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and Diverse City collaboration.
Production details to be announced in January.
8-29 Sep 2018
A Bristol Old Vic, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Royal & Derngate Northampton and Fuel co-production
TOUCHING THE VOID
A WORLD PREMIERE PRODUCTION
Adapted by David Greig
Directed by Tom Morris PRESS NIGHT: Thursday 18 Sep, 7pm Personal change in its most vivid and catastrophic form. 'His eyes had been full of thoughts. Pity. Pity and something else; a distance given to a wounded animal which could not be helped.'Joe Simpson's memoir Touching the Void, international bestseller and BAFTA-winning film sensation, charts his struggle for survival on the perilous Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. The heart of the story is Joe Simpson's mental battle as he teeters on the very brink of death and despair in a crevasse from which he can't possibly climb to safety. Also unforgettable in the story is the appalling dilemma of Simon Yates, perched on an unstable snow-cliff, battered by freezing winds and desperate to rescue the injured Simpson, who hangs from a rope below him. Knowing that they will both ultimately fall into the void, he makes the critical decision to cut the rope, forever changing the lives of both of them.
What happens when you have to face death squarely in the face and how do you find the strength to crawl back towards life?
Tom Morris (The Grinning Man, War Horse, Swallows & Amazons) directs the first stage adaptation of this nail-biting adventure, bringing award-winning writer David Greig (The Suppliant Women, The Events, The Lorax) back to Bristol for the first time since his college days. THEATRE7.30pm, 2.30pm (SELECTED THUR & SAT MATS)
£35.50 - £7.50
www.bristololdvic.org.uk / 0117 987 7877 @BristolOldVic #BOVVoid
Thu 11 Oct 2018
THE MEANING OF ZONG - A Workshop Performance
7.30pm
£12 - £7
www.bristololdvic.org.uk / 0117 987 7877 @BristolOldVic #BOVZong
17 Oct -10 Nov 2018
A Bristol Old Vic and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh co-production
TWELFTH NIGHT
Directed by Wils Wilson LOCAL PRESS NIGHT: Thursday 18 October 2018, 7.30pm 'O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.' Bristol Old Vic and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh are delighted to announce that the first co-production between the two award-winning theatres will be Shakespeare's hilarious and heart-breaking Twelfth Night. Mischief and mayhem abound in Illyria after twins Viola and Sebastian are separated in a shipwreck. Believing her brother to be lost forever, Viola, disguised as a man, finds herself caught between the households of the lovelorn Duke Orsino and the grieving Countess Olivia. Servants, friends and lovers entwine in a whirlwind tale of mistaken identity, misadventure and unrequited love. Will all come good in the end? The Lyceum's Associate Artist, Wils Wilson (The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart) directs this heady new production of Shakespeare's iconic play. Twelfth Night will open The Lyceum's 2018 Season before transferring to Bristol Old Vic. THEATRE
7.30pm, 2.30pm (selected Thur & Sat mats)
£39 - £7.50
www.bristololdvic.org.uk / 0117 987 7877 #BOVTwelfth
29 Nov 2018 - 13 Jan 2019
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
by Charles Dickens
Times and prices vary, see website for details
www.bristololdvic.org.uk / 0117 987 7877 @BristolOldVic #BOVCarol
Bristol Old Vic is the longest continuously running theatre in the UK, and celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2016. Under Artistic Director Tom Morris, the historic playhouse aims to inspire audiences with its own original productions, both at home and on tour, whilst nurturing the next generation of artists, whether that be through their 350-strong Young Company, their many outreach and education projects or their trailblazing artist development programme, Bristol Ferment.
They use their funding to support experiment and innovation, to allow access to their programme for people who would not otherwise encounter it, or be able to afford it, and to keep their extraordinary heritage alive and animated. Since 2016, while the theatre continues to present work, it has simultaneously been undergoing a multi-million pound redevelopment project to transform its front of house space into a warm and welcoming public building for all of Bristol to enjoy, create a new Studio Theatre and open up its unique theatrical heritage to the public for the first time. The project is due to be completed in autumn 2018.Comments
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