World Stages London Reviews First Season

The first season of World Stages London, the first ever collaboration between London producing venues – bringing together 8 London theatres with 12 UK and international co-producers – closed on 23 June 2012.

In this first season, over 63,000 people saw shows produced in London, which far exceeded expectations. Not including permanent staff at collaborating theatres, World Stages London employed 175 theatre professionals, along with over 500 non-professional participants.

World Stages London has been a celebration - through theatre - of the exhilarating cosmopolitan diversity of London. A series of exceptional shows created by leading artists, each drawing on the history and experience of one of London's major cultural communities. Nationals from five continents have been involved, with visitors from all parts of London and from all over the world seeing the shows.

World Stages London is jointly produced by Battersea Arts Centre, the Bush Theatre, the Lyric Hammersmith, The Royal Court Theatre, Sadler's Wells, Somerset House, Theatre Royal Stratford East and the Young Vic.

This season's productions – Wild Swans at the Young Vic, Three Kingdoms at the Lyric Hammersmith, BABEL at Caledonian Park, The Suit at the Young Vic, The Beloved at the Bush and Wah! Wah! Girls at the Peacock Theatre – have been loved and appreciated by many thousands – a high proportion of whom were not regular theatre goers - as well as provoKing Strong debate, enhancing the experience of making and visiting theatre in London. In addition, Somerset House hosted a free exhibition, Drowning World, along with several free talks by theatre practitioners.

In creating these shows, the London theatres have been joined by the Actors Touring Company, Kneehigh and WildWorks from the UK, as well as No99 Theatre of Estonia, the Munich Kammerspiele, KVS of Belgium, ShiberHur of Israel/Palestine, the Bouffes du Nord of Paris and The American Repertory Theatre of Boston, USA. Without the ambition of this international collaboration, theatres in London would not have been able to stage these shows.

"We thought this would be a one-off initiative, but we've been so encouraged by the response to the season and our ability to create work we can't make individually, we will continue with World Stages London in 2013 and beyond," said co-directors of World Stages London David Lan and Nicola Thorold.

The artists involved in World Stages London this season have included, directors: Peter Brook, Marie Hélène Estienne, Pravesh Kumar, Bill Mitchell, Sebastian Nübling, Emma Rice, Sacha Wares, Amir Nizar Zuabi; writers, composers, choreographers: Niraj Chag, Tanika Gupta, Franck Krwczyk, Mothobi Mutloatse, Javed Sanadi, Barney Simon, Simon Stephens, Gauri Sharma Tripathi, Alexandra Wood, Lars Wittershagen, Amir Nizar Zuabi; designers: Jon Bausor, Miriam Buether, Wang GongXin, Keith Khan, Ene-Liis Semper, Jackie Shemesh, Philippe Vialatte.

Beyond June 2012, Wah! Wah! Girls will be presented at Theatre Royal Stratford East from 6-29 September, as part of the London 2012 Festival, a 12-week nationwide Festival in celebration of the Games. In 2013, the Royal Court and Young Vic will co-produce Sugar (Working Title) at the Young Vic, exploring the journey of Yoruba culture, tradition and religion, as it moved through slavery from West Africa to the Americas. It is one of the most powerful stories of exploitation, resistance and survival that has ever been told. Director Rufus Norris and the Royal Court are working with playwrights from five countries where the Yoruban legacy has had great impact on contemporary life: Rotimi Babatunde (Nigeria) Marcos Barbosa (Brazil), Tanya Barfield (USA), Yunior Garcia Aguilera (Cuba), and Gbolahan Obisesan (UK). Together, they are creating a theatrical exploration of this diaspora across the Atlantic and back. Sugar will be staged at the Young Vic in late January 2013.

Also planned for 2013 is a Somerset House Trust and The Royal Opera House with The Opera Group and King's College London co-production of a new opera by Jonathan Dove, Climate Refugees the Opera (Working Title), which will be directed by Penny Woolcock and staged at Somerset House. In 2008, award-winning opera composer Jonathan Dove went on the Cape Farewell voyage to the Arctic and was inspired by witnessing first hand the environmental damage brought on by climate change to write a new community opera on an international scale. Since climate change affects communities around the world, Dove's opera is being written for simultaneous live performances by communities on three continents, working collaboratively with creative teams in London, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. The libretto (by Alasdair Middleton) will draw directly from the personal experiences of people in each place who have been forced to move from their homes as a direct result of climate change.

With thanks to our supporters

For World Stages London as a whole
Arts Council England
British Council
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
Foyle Foundation

And for BABEL
Bloomberg
City Bridge Trust
Paul Hamlyn Foundation
JP Morgan

 

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