Cindy Marcolina - Page 42

Written by David Thame, Kompromat was inspired by the still-unsolved murder of a GCHQ agent and sees young Zac (Max Rinehart) coming to terms with his action. Arriving to London from a sex-trafficking circuit based in Budapest, his only goal is to either get cryptographer Tom to work for the mob or to get rid of him.

Anima Theatre Company present Blue Departed, a show marketed as a re-imagination of Dante's Inferno. On paper, it sounds interesting but on stage it becomes a vague exploration of love and drug abuse.

Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, two of America's most brilliant poets, wrote over 800 pages of letters to each other. They were best friends, platonic soulmates who rarely met but exchanged such soulful and heart-wrenching words between each other.

Following Macbeth in 2016 and The Tempest in 2017, Southwark Playhouse presents Twelfth Night as part of their Shakespeare For Schools programme. The aim of their annual project is to bring top-notch professional Shakespeare productions targeted to younger audiences, some of whom might be experiencing theatre for the first time in their lives.

Jermyn Street Theatre opens 2019 with a bang dressing the mental health discourse in a pink fluffy bunny suit. Original Death Rabbit is Rose Heiney's new play which details the downfall and eventual becoming of an unnamed 31-year-old who found sudden fame as a meme (played by BAFTA winner Kimberley Nixon). On the eve of her 32nd birthday, she turns on her laptop wearing her "bunny" and starts telling her internet audience how she got there.

Written between The Phantom of the Opera and Sunset Boulevard, Aspects of Love belongs to the pool of Andrew Lloyd Webber's neglected musical. Back in 1989 it launched the career of none other than Michael Ball, who wowed the audiences with 'Love Changes Everything', his character Alex's big song which, surprisingly, opens the show.

Dusty Hughes' new play sees Hampstead Theatre putting together veterans of the venue. From Alice Hamilton at the direction (previously at the helm of Every Day I Make Greatness Happen earlier in the season) to Sara Kestelman (Filthy Business among others), the team is almost fully comprised of artists who've previously worked at that address, including Hughes, who premiered Bad Language in 1983 starrting Alan Rickman.

The Royal Albert Hall rang in the festive season with a screening of one of the most-beloved Christmas classics from the 90s. The venue, appropriately decked in fairy lights and Christmas trees, welcomed all ages to appreciate Home Alone accompanied by the Cinematic Sinfonia and the Crouch End Festival Chorus.

Theatre producer Katy Lipson - who is producing artistic director of the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester, as well as being an independent producer and who has recently taken on the road shows such as The Addams Family - is bringing Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1989 musical Aspects of Love to Southwark Playhouse which began at Hope Mill in August 2018. Here, we discuss what makes a good producer, her passion for theatre, and how the show resonates with the present times.

Adam Spreadbury-Maher - artistic director of the King's Head Theatre and director of theatre and opera - is transferring his critically acclaimed production of Kevin Elyot's Coming Clean to Trafalgar Studios. He talks about his career, his approach to direction, and how momentous the play is ahead of its run in January.

Natalie Ibu, artistic director of Tiata Fahodzi, is taking Arinze Kene's good dog back on the road after a stellar success in 2017. Here, she discusses her journey into theatre, directing the tour, and the importance of self-care in the industry.

After starting out Off-Broadway in 2011 and collecting nominations from the Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama Desk Awards, Kellen Blair and Joe Kinosian's Murder for Two landed its UK premiere at The Watermill last year. Now, it's come to London to delight Christmas audiences at The Other Palace directed by Luke Sheppard and produced by the theatre's own Paul Taylor-Mills.

As we're ready to draw the curtain on a busy 2018, it's time to look back on my eclectic year of theatre in a (consciously unmethodical) collection of highlights.

Brand new arts organisation AILA debuts Aisha, written and directed by the founder, AJ. A harrowing story about child marriage, the play follows a 17-year-old's struggle as she endures the life of a slave-bride.

Hampstead Theatre presents Uncle Vanya in a new translation by Terry Johnson, who also directs. Chekhov's well-known piece follows Sonia and her uncle Vanya as they receive a visit from her father and his beautiful younger wife Yeliena at the rural estate they manage on his behalf. Yeliena presence stirs Vanya's long-forgotten regrets and nearly destroys the balance they've established in the country.

It's 1828 in Edinburgh and medical advances are running as fast as the number of cadavers are low. Spurred by their stack of debts and with a penchant for enterprise, William Burke (Hayden Wood) and William Hare (Alex Parry) decide to take advantage of the influenza outbreak to supply surgeons with (mostly) fresh bodies with the help of Mrs Hare (Katy Daghorn) and other incidental unfortunates.

It's December 1991 and in a 'special hospital' Ruth (Emily Tucker), Claudia (Evlyne Oyedokun), and Dee (Amy McAllister) are gearing up to celebrate the holidays by demonstrating how well-adjusted they've become. They know that bonding with the rapists and other male convicts at the Christmas disco could be used by the parole board to back their early release.

After a sold-out run at Oxford University, composer Maria Shepard took her musical based on Lev Tolstoy's Anna Karenina for a one-night engagement at The Actors' Church in London as part of Iris Theatre's Workin Process. Considered one of the greatest literary accomplishment of all time, it's certainly an ambitious venture for the young Shepard, who pens a mature revisitation of the material directed by Jasmine White.

After The Murder Express and Journey To The Underworld, Funicular invite their audience to Pedley Street Station to embark on a silly Christmas journey whilst savouring a sublime feast. When the mysterious Ed Snow hops on a train directed to the Birmingham Christmas market, greater forces take over to carry out their secret mission.

Rebecca Frecknall's production of Summer and Smoke lands in the West End after a starry run at Almeida Theatre earlier this year. In its new incarnation, one of Tennessee Williams' undervalued pieces is turned into an aesthetic dream to inspire a broader reflection on how the 1948 play resonates 70 years later.