Jermyn Street Theatre Hosts Footprints Festival in 2024

This January, Footprints Festival returns to Jermyn Street Theatre for its third season.  Comprising a collection of six daring and electrifying works, the month-long mini season showcases a wealth of young talent that includes the Carne Deputy Director, the winner of the Woven Voices Prize for Playwriting, and the hand-picked cohort of up-and-coming writers, directors, designers, and producers that make up the theatre’s Creative Associates. 

The festival opens with the European premiere of Talene Monahon’s The Good John Proctor.  Directed by 2023 Carne Deputy Director Anna Ryder, this is a new production that follows a critically acclaimed staging of the play in New York.  A prequel to the twentieth century classic, The Crucible, the action takes place in the year leading up to the events dramatised in Arthur Miller’s great work.  This exploration into the inner lives of the real girls at the centre of the Salem witch trials sees their world turned upside down when Abigail starts working for a local farmer, John Proctor.

Running in repertory with The Good John Proctor is Jaisal Marmion’s debut work Boy In Da Korma directed by Ben Grant.  This is the story of a a half-Indian, half-Irish boy on the rural south-west coast of Ireland who believes he is Tupac reincarnated. This is what 17-year old Liam knows with his entire heart and soul: he’s destined to be the world’s next rap superstar - Straight Outta Skibbereen.  Featuring original music, this exhilarating, irreverent exploration of mixed-race identity charts one kid’s desperate attempts to belong as much as he wants to stand out.

Alongside Boy In The Korma, audiences can also catch and The Pursuit of Joy written by Safaa Benson-Effiom and directed by Brigitte Adela. Ardel, Joan, and Iona - three strangers on the hunt for something different - meet at arrivals before the 2349 mile journey TO FIND THEMSELVES - along the way they search for the answer to life's most important questions. What is joy? Where do we find it? And what’s with all the baggage? This is a heart-warming journey of self-discovery through hot rain and cold cerveza.

As February gets underway Flora Wilson Brown’s multi-period climate crisis play - A Beautiful Future Is Coming opens. 1854, New York - Eunice sits in what will become Central Park and wonders if something is going horribly wrong.  2027, London - Clare falls in love as the streets begin to flood. 2100. Svalbard - Ana hears a baby crying in the seed vault. The world is ending, sure. But what happens in between? Directed by Harry Tennison, this is a fast-paced, funny, moving play about 250 years of climate crisis and holding onto hope against all odds.

Next up comes the UK premiere of Two Rounds written by Oscar-nominee Cristina Comencini. translated and directed by Aida Rocci.  A Jermyn Street Theatre and Aslant Theatre Co-Production, this award-winning Italian comedy offers a delicate reflection on being a woman across generations. Beginning in 1960s Italy, Claudia, Gabriella, Sofia, and Beatrice meet every week to play cards, discuss their marriages, and shuffle the deck of life. Fast forward thirty years, their daughters gather after a funeral, and the cycle repeats. But has anything changed? This searing new translation brings the flavour, passion, and authenticity of a story that has captivated Italy for decades.

Rounding off the Footprints season comes the recently announced winning entry of the Woven Voices Prize for Playwriting 2023.  Spanning five decades, The E.U. Killed My Dad written by Aaron Kilercioglu is a tensely gripping thriller that tells the story of a family reunion which fast becomes an exhilarating whodunnit.  This inventive, fast-paced work unravels a conspiracy that goes to the heart of global politics and explores the themes of identity, belonging, and the inescapable bonds of history.

Artistic Director and Executive Producer at Jermyn Street Theatre, Stella Powell-Jones and David Doyle said:

We’re launching this year’s Footprints Festival at a time when opportunities for artists and audiences to see new work are vanishing. This festival puts the next generation of artists right where they belong – in the heart of the West End.  Electric, celebratory, provocative: these are the perfect plays to celebrate the beginning of 2024.

Jermyn Street Theatre is the West End’s studio theatre. The Stage’s Fringe Theatre of the Year 2021, it is led by Artistic Director Stella Powell-Jones, co-Founder and Executive Director Penny Horner, and Executive Producer David Doyle. The theatre won a 2022 Critics’ Circle Award for its lockdown theatre. The programme includes outstanding new plays, rare revivals, new versions of European classics, and high-quality musicals, alongside one-off musical and literary events. It collaborates with theatres across the world, and its productions have transferred across the UK, Broadway, and beyond.

The recently announced autumn season includes Caroline Quentin in the world premiere of April De Angelis’s Infamous, a revival of Caryl Churchill’s first play Owners, and Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime with Charles Court Opera.

 

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