Jermyn Street Theatre To Reopen With Festival Celebrating Live Performance

Following a year without live in-person audiences, Jermyn Street Theatre, winner of the 2021 Stage Award for Fringe Theatre of the Year, will light up again this May as it launches a three month celebration of drama, music, poetry and comedy. FOOTPRINTS FESTIVAL, which kicks off on May 17, will feature over 40 small-scale productions playing to socially-distanced audiences of 25 people in the auditorium and streamed simultaneously for audiences to watch at home. The festival will run to August 1 with matinee, evening and late night shows staged throughout the weeks.

Footprints Festival champions theatre and the people who make it, and will engage around 300 freelancers. There are six strands: Drama, Solo Cabaret, Classics, Showcases and Poetry, all of which include shows to make us laugh, think and perhaps shed a tear or two. As always at Jermyn Street Theatre, household names will share the bill with exciting newcomers offering an exciting mix of the familiar and the new.

With the full schedule of 43 shows to be announced in the coming weeks, today Jermyn Street Theatre can reveal three plays which will sit at the heart of the festival:

Two Horsemen, by Biyi Bandele, directed by incoming JST Carne Deputy Director Ebenezer Bamgboye. Two Horsemen is an absurdist comedy about two men who find themselves in limbo. It won the Best New Play Award at the 1994 New Plays Festival and this is its first revival.

Lone Flyer, by Ade Morris, directed by Lucy Betts. Lone Flyer tells the story of groundbreaking pilot Amy Johnson. Betts' production previously appeared at the Watermill Theatre to critical acclaim.

Mr and Mrs Nobody, by Keith Waterhouse, directed by Gabriella Bird. Bird last worked on JST's 15 Heroines. Waterhouse's adaptation of George and Weedon Grossmith's eternally funny Victorian novel is perfect summer entertainment.

Tom Littler, Artistic Director of Jermyn Street Theatre, said: "Footprints Festival will be a blast of fresh summer air after a long winter. These shows - drama, cabaret, classics, poetry, solos and showcases - are theatre at its most essential. Actors, audiences, and stories. Book early to join us at the theatre, or tune in from the sofa!"

While social distancing remains in force, each performance will have a maximum audience size of 25. Safety precautions including deep cleaning, temperature-checks and masks will keep audiences safe. For audiences who prefer to watch at home, every event of Footprints Festival will be streamed.

Festival Passes will grant audiences significant discounts across all theatre and online tickets. Tickets purchased with Festival Passes start from under £10. Friends of Jermyn Street Theatre will have access to Priority Booking for theatre tickets from Wednesday 21 April. Friends membership is available at www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/friends/.

Jermyn Street Theatre is the West End's smallest producing theatre. The Stage's Fringe Theatre of the Year 2021, it is led by Artistic and Executive Directors Tom Littler and Penny Horner. 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 to the West End and Broadway. Its 2020 had begun with acclaimed, sold-out productions of a Beckett Triple Bill directed by Trevor Nunn, and The Tempest directed by Tom Littler. During closure, the theatre has responded with its Brave New World season of digital work, including the complete cycle of Shakespeare's sonnets performed by a mixture of graduating drama students and household names including Helena Bonham Carter and Olivia Colman and the acclaimed 15 Heroines with DigitalTheatre+ featuring adaptations of Ovid from writers including Juliet Gilkes Romero and Timberlake Wertenbaker.

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