Finborough Theatre Announces June-August 2022 Season

The Finborough Theatre's June-August 2022 season features two stunning new plays by British female playwrights, together with an initiative responding to the war in Ukraine - #VoicesFromUkraine will include a month's run of Two Ukrainian Plays in August, alongside an ongoing online programme of readings and performances of new and rediscovered Ukrainian drama and poetry.

As one of the most intimate venues in London, we were forced to close for 18 months because of the Covid Pandemic, and we are continuing our commitment to making sure our theatre is as Covid Safe and accessible as possible to those who are vulnerable - including special Covid Pass Sunday performances."


The season opens with the world premiere of Darkie Armo Girl, a new solo play from British-Armenian writer and performer Karine Bedrossian, playing from 14 June-9 July 2022. A true story which begins in 1974 as an Armenian family - already carrying the devastating weight of their ancestral past - flee civil war and arrive in the UK. In 1976, Karin Bedrossian is born. Eighteen years later, Karin is homeless, penniless, and her only friends are a couple of heroin addicts. The solution? Become a famous pop star...
The season continues with the world premiere of Pennyroyal by Lucy Roslyn, directed by Josh Roche, playing 12 July-6 August 2022. Inspired by Edith Wharton's 1922 novella The Old Maid, Pennyroyal is a beautiful, heartrending story of embittered sisters, longed-for children and regrets many years in the making. With wit and humanity, it explores the expectations placed on women and what happens when life doesn't go to plan.

The season ends with Two Ukrainian Plays, playing 9 August-3 September 2022, featuring the English premiere of Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha by Ukraine's leading contemporary playwright Natal'ya Vorozhbit, and a play never seen before outside Ukraine, Pussycat in Memory of Darkness by Neda Nezhdana in her UK debut. Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha blends reality and the supernatural in a critical look at the effects of war and conflict. Pussycat in Memory of Darkness starkly reveals the roots of Russia's war on Ukraine through the brutalised eyes of one woman. On Wednesday, 24 August (Ukrainian Independence Day) at 5.00pm, and free to ticketholders for the evening performance, we will also be screening the award-winning Golos, a feature film documentary.

The company will shortly be announcing dates for an ongoing season of online readings and performances of Ukrainian plays in English. We are proud to be part of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings series (run by the Center for International Theatre Development and the Theatre of Playwrights, Kyiv) presenting work from contemporary Ukrainian playwrights including some written in direct response to the invasion. In addition, true to our policy of pairing vibrant new writing with unique rediscoveries, we will be presenting readings and performances of classic Ukrainian drama and poetry in English.

While free to view, we will be asking for donations for the Voices of Children Foundation, a Ukrainian charity providing urgently needed psychological and psychosocial support to children affected by the war in Ukraine. https://voices.org.ua/en/donat/.

The new plays will include:
He Who Opens The Door by Neda Nezhdana
A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War by Yelena Astasyeva
The Peed-Upon Armored Personnel Carrier by Oksana Gritsenko
Otvetka by Neda Nezhdana
The rediscoveries will include:
Hunger - 1933 by Bohdan Boychuk
Plus modern and classic Ukrainian poetry, and lots more to come...

Presented as part of #FinboroughFrontier, an exciting new complement to our live theatre work, embracing the possibilities of digital creativity. All our online content will remain - as it was throughout lockdown - entirely free to view, and also be available with subtitles on Scenesaver. Our first releases, earlier this year, were An Earls Court Miscellany, a celebration of the vivid history and personalities of Earl's Court featuring poetry, prose and music, and filmed in the local area, and How To Make A Revolution by Einat Weizman with Issa Amro, a verbatim documentary play filmed in the UK and Hebron.