The Other Room Announces Autumn 2019 Season Of Three Brand New Plays

Today, Cardiff's pub theatre The Other Room, located in Porter's and winner of The Stage's Fringe Theatre of the Year Award, announces its Autumn 2019 season, entitled THE VIOLENCE SERIES. The season is an anthology of three brand new plays commissioned and produced by The Other Room, with work from writers Matthew Bulgo, Tess Berry-Hart and Mari Izzard. The season will run at The Other Room from August and will then tour Wales and England in the Spring of 2020.

THE VIOLENCE SERIES opens with the premiere of American Nightmare by Matthew Bulgo (Last Christmas, The Awkward Years, Constellation Street), running at The Other Room 10 - 29 September. The play tackles political violence through the tale of a dystopian USA - while the super-rich wine and dine in sky-line restaurants dreaming of bigger and better cities, the poor enrol at a secret military facility in a programme with more than sinister ends. Directed by Sara Lloyd, American Nightmare dissects the battle lines that exist within the eponymous 'American Dream'.

Next, Tess Berry-Hart heralds her arrival in Wales with a sharp, shock of a play running at The Other Room 8 - 27 October. Inspired by Tess's work with refugees from Assad's jails and Libyan prisons, The Story is a psychological thriller set in a Kafkaesque world that questions the language of 'othering' and humanity itself. What stories do we tell ourlselves to justify violence? Is mental torture worse than physical? And how long can we last before our loyalty - and sanity - splinters and snaps? The Story is a disquieting exploration of moral condemnation and personal responsibility that keeps the audience guessing to the very end. The production reunites Tess with her long-time artistic collaborator, director David Mercatali.

The season rounds off with a brand-new bilingual (Welsh and English) play from the winner of The Other Room's Violet Burns Playwright Award, Mari Izzard, which runs at The Other Room 5 - 24 November. Hela (Hunting in English) talks of sexual violence, its legacy and its effects. Sporting its own anarchic flavour of the Welsh language, Hela asks if we truly understand sexual abuse. Can such deep seated pain can ever be defused? And how far we are willing to go to see justice happen? The production marks The Other Room's Artistic Director Dan Jones' professional debut in the Welsh-language.

Dan comments:

"THE VIOLENCE SERIES is an anthology of specially commissioned plays unified by a single purpose; to expose and explode the violence that saturates our world. There's a deep-seated violence in society that feels closer to the surface now than ever before, and we're asking at what point does the damage become irrevocable? Has that threshold come and gone? Is there a slither of hope to be found? The Violence anthology presents a world that is both familiar and on fire. But don't expect a massacre however, as this series of works offers all of the charm, pathos and craft you'd expect from such playwrights as Matthew, Tess and Mari. It's a trio of plays interested in the language and politics of violence and the lengths we would go to avoid it. We want every play presented at The Other Room, curated or produced, to part with something that lingers long after - be it a thought, and idea or a question - and this dark anthology embodies that more than ever before."

The Other Room's outgoing Executive Director Bizzy Day comments:

"THE VIOLENCE SERIES is our most ambitious yet and marks a paradigm shift into a new programming model for The Other Room. As the work we commission responds to these trying times we live in, so must we as an organisation. Since opening in 2015 the theatre has seen tremendous growth; now is the time to build on that growth, extend our reach and show more people what our artists here in Wales are capable of. THE VIOLENCE SERIES capitalises on our momentum as a leading small-scale theatre producer in Wales, championing Welsh and Wales-based artists to make ambitious work with real weight. With this season we throw the gauntlet down with a new commitment to our audiences, taking our work across Wales and into London."

Cast and ticket information for The Other Room's THE VIOLENCE SERIES will be announced later this year. To keep updated, visit www.otherroomtheatre.com or follow the team on Twitter @TORtheatre and Facebook www.facebook.com/otherroomtheatre

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