Watford Palace Theatre Announces Spring 2023 Season

Comedy, children's shows and adaptations of classics are the flavour of Spring 2023 at Watford Palace Theatre.

Leading actor and writer Tracy Ann Oberman will reinvent the role of Shylock in the hotly anticipated The Merchant of Venice 1936, directed by Brigid Larmour, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Watford Palace Theatre. The production shines a light on an earlier dark chapter in our history, the growth of a British Fascist party in the 1930s, and the East End community coming together to stop them in the Battle of Cable Street. This is a strictly limited two-week premiere run before the production goes up to HOME in Manchester.

Goblin Theatre, Watford Palace Theatre, Polka Theatre and Theatre by The Lake then present a magical new musical The Lost Spells, adapted from the much-loved children's book by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. A fun, wild and boisterous adventure full of paw-tapping music and dancing, played live on-stage by actor-musicians, the show is a riot of colour a celebrating the magic, power and wonder of nature that could be just outside your window.

Other children's and family work in the spring includes Shark in the Park, Curious Investigators, Pop Princesses concert and TV's Twirlywoos Live on stage.

Music fans can enjoy classics of the 50s and 60s in Rave On: The British Invasion and Walk Like a Man, Latin 90s tunes in Bring the Heat and rock out to Queen Rhapsody.

Continuing to screen films at the theatre, this spring will be presenting Royal Opera House ballets and operas Sleeping Beauty, The Barber of Seville and Like Water for Chocolate amongst others.

Artistic Director Brigid Larmour said "We've got an amazing spring season of event theatre, a world premiere musical adaptation of a children's favourite, the best of opera and ballet from the Royal Opera House, comedy for everyone from babies upwards, well-loved local companies, and thrilling live music! Star of stage and screen Tracy Ann Oberman leads a superb cast with RSC actors in our radical and passionate new version of Shakespeare's controversial Merchant of Venice exploring antisemitism in Britain in the 30s, in partnership with Home Manchester. Local participants will create a living gallery of experiences of people who lived through those times, with inspiring local company Moving Stories, alongside an imaginative education programme with the charity Stand Up. Brilliant local theatre makers Goblin work with us to create a fun, wild and boisterous musical adaptation of Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris' worldwide bestseller The Lost Spells. And we host a range of the best of entertainment for everyone, from an interactive Dinosaur Adventure to the award-wining Little Prince to Disco Inferno."

Watford Palace Theatre inspires and entertains through inventive, ambitious, and inclusive drama, new plays, musicals, dance, and family shows; Imagine Watford, a free annual festival celebrating a range of outdoor performance art; diverse stand-up; Stage in the Park, an exciting and varied programme of entertainment set in Cassiobury Park, Watford; and a much-loved traditional pantomime. It reflects its diverse communities, and fully represents women, both onstage and behind the scenes, whilst celebrating and developing creativity and skill in the community and with young people, exhibited with Buffering, the first onstage performance by the Palace Young Company at Stage in the Park, and the Hertfordshire Film Festival produced in partnership with Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, the University of Hertfordshire, and CathARTic Art. The theatre's locally produced shows and home-grown talent have toured nationally and internationally, been seen on BBC iPlayer, won awards, and transferred to the West End. Central to WPT's vision is Resident Partner Rifco Theatre Company. Recent WPT productions include Jan Ravens in Talking Heads; an all-female Gaslight; the UK's first African-American Glass Menagerie; and Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular. World premieres include musicals Mushy and Miss Meena & the Masala Queens (with Rifco), and I Capture the Castle, and plays good dog by Arinze Kene (with tiata fahodzi), Poppy+George by Diane Samuels, Coming Up by Neil d'Souza, Jefferson's Garden by Timberlake Wertenbaker, and Jumpers for Goalposts by Tom Wells.

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