Queen's Theatre Hornchurch Announces Autumn 2020 Season

Queen's Theatre Hornchurch has announced its Autumn 2020 season following the news it will be reopening its doors to the public on Thursday 3 September. The building has been closed to the public for the last five and a half months, while extensive work has continued behind closed doors to complete the Theatre's £1.2 million QNew Transformation capital programme.

The Autumn season has been significantly revised to reflect the current circumstances surrounding socially distanced performances and reduced auditorium capacity. The season includes Misfits, an innovative new hybrid of live theatre and digital content - bookers will purchase a ticket which will allow them the choice of watching the show be performed live onstage in front of an audience or streamed to their homes, right up until the day of the show. Misfits intertwines four inspirational tales of Essex resilience to make an unmissable world premiere by some of the region's most exciting playwrights. It is the next step in the Theatre's Essex on Stage programme, an ambitious new two year programme led by Queen's Theatre Hornchurch, championing positive notions of Essex, celebrating theatre made by working class people and raising aspirations for emerging artists from Essex and Outer East London. Misfits is a collaborative project written by four Outer East London and Essex writers. Three of the four writers have not been commissioned by Queen's Theatre Hornchurch before:

• Anne Odeke, a Southend-based actress to whom QTH has given her first ever writing commission (Bartholomew Fair, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Globe Theatre)

• Guleraana Mir, (Coconut, Ovalhouse), Hornchurch-based playwright and one half of female-led theatre company The Thelmas

• Kenny Emson, award-winning Essex playwright (Rust, Terrorism, Bush Theatre; Plastic, Mercury Theatre Colchester)

The fourth, Sadie Hasler, co-founder of Southend theatre company Old Trunk and Queen's Theatre Hornchurch Associate Artist, wrote the highly acclaimed Stiletto Beach for the Theatre, as part of the 2019 Essex Girls and Boys season.

The Theatre is also bringing a range of socially distanced comedy, family and music guest shows to its Main House throughout the Autumn, as well as showcasing new work from emerging artists as part of its Outer Limits programme on its newly renamed The Other Stage. The popular community Café will also reopen, and the Theatre's impressive learning & participation programme, which engaged over 32,000 participants of all ages last year, continues with a range of online and in-person activities.

Finally, the Theatre gets festive with Christmas Allsorts. The Theatre is offering this brand new seasonal special as an alternative to its regular Christmas pantomime, following the announcement, alongside Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, Hackney Empire, Theatre Royal Stratford East, that the pantomime cannot go ahead. The production is a delightfully traditional family variety show featuring yuletide tunes from films and musicals, as well as beloved Christmas pop, alongside classic and new sketches.

Finally, the Theatre is also launching I AM HERE, a new online project taking place across four sessions, featuring trailblazing artists Paul Bradshaw (A Christmas Carol, Lyceum Theatre), David Gilbert (Umtolo, The Young Vic), Jordan Gray (Transaction, Comedy Central), Kelly Jones (Room To Escape, BBC Arts). The sessions have been produced and will be hosted by the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch Young Changemakers, a group of nine individuals aged 18-25, all from different backgrounds, all living in Outer East London and Essex, who are passionate about bringing young people into theatre. Each weekly session will focus on a different intersection of identity: class, race, sexuality and gender, exploring representation in the arts.