Theatre503 Reveals 2024 Season Of World Premieres

Harlem playwright Nia Akilah Robinson's 2023 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award finalist The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar premieres in May, directed by Theatre503's Carne Associate Director and 2023 JMK Award Winner Kalungi Ssebandeke. The production is one of three world premieres of new plays by debut writers at the new writing powerhouse, alongside co-productions of Tachwedd (November/The Slaughter) by 503Five alumnus Jon Berry and Bungalow by Ruth D'Silva.

• The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar by Nia Akilah Robinson, directed by Kalungi Ssebandeke, a Theatre503 production (14 May – 1 June 2024; Press performance: Tuesday 21 May)

• Bungalow by Ruth D'Silva, directed by Beth Kapila, a co-production with Jessie Anand Productions (10 – 28 September 2024; Press performance: Tuesday 17 September)

 

• Tachwedd (November/The Slaughter) by Jon Berry, directed by Jac Ifan Moore, a co-production with Phoebe Stringer Productions (15 October – 2 November 2024; Press performance: Tuesday 22 October)

Lisa Spirling, Artistic Director: “Nia Akilah Robinson, Jon Berry and Ruth D'Silva are bold, brilliant debut writers all with the bravery and skill to crack open our hearts and minds in their quest for the humanity in us all. The audacious writing in their plays explores and then shatters the status quo of what has gone before, they ask difficult questions, hold up to the light big ideas and societal fault lines, and hold the characters within them with nuance and soul. We can't wait to share their words and their worlds with you.”

Theatre503 is delighted to confirm that the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award will return for 2024/5, with submissions opening on 1 June 2024. Further information will be announced soon. Theatre503's Writer's Programme of online and in-person writing masterclasses and courses will continue through 2024, and a programme of new writing short runs during the Summer is to be announced.

The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar

by Nia Akilah Robinson, directed by Kalungi Ssebandeke
14 May – 1 June 2024 (Press performance: Tuesday 21 May)

The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar is about Grave Robbing: Grave Robbing during the early 1800's. Grave Robbing during the Cholera outbreak. Grave Robbing in Pennsylvania. Robbing of Black bodies for medical research. Black bodies that were commodified even after death. Black bodies that never got their rest.

2023 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award Finalist The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar is a stunning, profound play exploring the historical disruption of black bodies at rest, where timelines and generations collide, and secrets and lives become buried and revealed. Nia Akilah Robinson's beautiful and haunting debut play captures humour and joy amongst the darkest moments, and asks us all to reflect deeply on who we once might have been.

Nia Akilah Robinson is a playwright and actor who reps Harlem with all her might. Her work has been developed through residencies, fellowships, commissions, and development with a number of prestigious companies and festivals in the US (full biography in credits). Director Kalungi Ssebandeke is Theatre503's Carne Associate Director. His credits include Meetings (Orange Tree) for which he won the 2023 JMK Directing Award. Zena Collins (whose producing credits include J'Ouvert) is Executive Producer and Clarisse Makundul Productions is Associate Producer.

The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar was selected from 1466 scripts as one of five finalists for the 2023 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award and its premiere follows the success of the recent sold-out and extended production of the Award's winner A Woman Walks Into a Bank by Roxy Cook (currently nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize). Theatre503 is delighted to confirm that the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award will return for 2024/5, with submissions opening on 1st June 2024. Further information will be announced soon.

Bungalow

by Ruth D'Silva, directed by Beth Kapila
10 – 28 September 2024 (Press performance: Tuesday 17 September)

I am Bungalow. A brick construct in my sixties, I was born with the stain of original sin on my soul. Oh, the things I have seen. Spend some time within my walls. Welcome home.

Agatha returns to her childhood bungalow to care for her vulnerable mother and for the first time in her life has her all to herself - the perfect opportunity to have that chat where all the unsaid things are finally said. However, little does Agatha know that Bungalow, groaning under the weight of the secrets it has witnessed, has a mind of its own.

Exploring the duty of care and the burden of shame in a contemporary Anglo-Indian family, Bungalow is a vital new work about one woman's attempt to take control of her own story. 

Ruth D'Silva is an Anglo-Indian writer living in South London. She has been part of playwriting groups at the Royal Court, Soho Theatre, and HighTide, received a seed commission from Tara Theatre and winner of an MGCFutures bursary. Bungalow is her first full-length play and was shortlisted for the RSC's 37 Plays Folio. Director Beth Kapila is a Regional Associate at Tamasha and was Artistic Associate at Tara Theatre. Her credits include Our Streets (Tara Theatre) and When the Sea Swallows Us Whole (VAULT Festival).

Tachwedd (November/The Slaughter)

by Jon Berry, directed by Jac Ifan Moore
15 October – 2 November 2024 (Press performance: Tuesday 22 October)

Four people. 200 years. The feeling of being hunted.

A horn sounds in the clearing, a factory explosion, a rush of blood. Can you truly escape the destiny set out for you? From selling out, to leaving home, to returning to a place of regret, Tachwedd charts a family's journey as they try to reconcile the inescapability of the past with the weight of the future.

Embark on an exhilarating journey through time, myth, and legacy with Tachwedd, a captivating play that unfurls the intricate relationship between history, land, and consequence. Seamlessly transporting you between the eras of Bethesda, North Wales, Tachwedd weaves together the agricultural to the industrial, and all the way to the contemporary. Tachwedd turns the notion of a 'state-of-the-nation' on its head, intertwining religious fervour, royal hunting parties, and palpable national angst to create an evocative, searing piece of contemporary theatre. At once enigmatic and blisteringly direct, this beautiful production invites you to question the past, challenge the present, and bear witness to the forces that shape our collective destiny.

Jon Berry's work for theatre includes Bear for Wales Millennium Centre & Awen Cultural Trust; Birdwatching, created with the Royal Court's Welsh Writers' Course; Strays, created with the New Welsh Playwrights' Programme, Sherman Theatre. Jon has been awarded the Kevin Elyot Award for Drama. He is also on the editorial board of Platform, the Performance Studies journal. Director Jac Ifan Moore is an alumnus of the JMK Regional Directors' scheme and National Theatre Studio Directors' Course, and a founding member of PowderHouse, a company in residence at Sherman Theatre.

Tachwedd (November/The Slaughter) is presented by Phoebe Stringer Productions, whose credits include the sell-out Holy Sh*t and award-winning One Night Records along with partnerships with Harrods, Hennessy and Uber.

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