Find Yourself in HOME Manchester's Spring/Summer 2018 Season; Full Lineup Announced

HOME today announces its new season of international theatre and dance from February to September 2018. Check out the trailer for the upcoming season below!

Highlights include the welcome return of Hofesh Shechter Company in early 2018 with a HOME co-commission, the critically acclaimed Grand Finale - part dance, part gig, pArt Theatre and wholly original. HOME is also thrilled to present a new production of Circle Mirror Transformation, directed by Olivier award winning director Bijan Sheibani and introducing Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Annie Baker to Manchester audiences. In co-production with Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, HOME presents Long Day's Journey Into Night, Eugene O'Neill's devastating masterpiece that shows a family's grief unravel over the course of a single afternoon.

From Thu 12 Apr to Sat 5 May, ¡Viva! returns with a HOME-wide celebration of theatre, film and contemporary visual art from across the Spanish speaking world. For 2018, inspired by Latin America's long history of political turmoil, the festival will be exploring and celebrating the art and artists that have attempted to articulate, support and sometimes challenge these revolutionary moments and movements. Theatre highlights include the world premiere of the Olivier Award-winning and Grammy nominated The Tiger Lillies' Corrido de la Sangre, commissioned by HOME, set at the border of Mexico and the US where mythical creatures from Aztec times still haunt the night and with stunning visuals and original music; Lola Arias' MINEFIELD, performed to great acclaim at the Royal Court as part of LIFT Festival by one of the most exciting multi-disciplinary artists working internationally today; and Xavier Bobés' Things Easily Forgotten, an intimate and sensory journey of sights and sounds delving into the histories of Spain from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Also heading to HOME's Theatre 1 and Theatre 2 stages are many touring shows including work by Action Hero, Actors Touring Company & Orange Tree Theatre, Breach Theatre, Hoipolloi, David Hoyle, Kneehigh and Sh!t Theatre.

HOME is delighted to have secured second-year funding from The Foyle Foundation to continue to deliver its unique talent development programme, offering opportunities to theatre makers at all career stages to develop and extend their practice. Throughout the year, HOME offers one-off skills workshops, long-term development residencies and regular showcases of work, new and in progress, all aimed at supporting the professional development of creatives regionally and nationally.

HOME is delighted to have secured second-year funding from The Foyle Foundation, to continue to deliver its unique talent development programme offering opportunities to theatre makers at all career stages to develop and extend their practice. Throughout the year, HOME offers one-off skills workshops, long-term development residencies and regular showcases of work, new and in progress, all aimed at supporting the professional development of creatives regionally and nationally.

Highlights include a new partnership with Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning, offering regional artists the opportunity to take part in an Open Lab, where artists can experiment in a working theatrical space without the expectation of a final product. There will also be a new pilot project with Boy Blue Entertainment providing creative opportunities for dancers across the North-West.

Walter Meierjohann, Artistic Director: Theatre, HOME, commented: "¡Viva! will return this season to brighten our Spring/Summer with a full and colourful cross-art programme from Spain and Latin America. In theatre, we are very proud to present the world premiere of a HOME and The Tiger Lillies co-production, Corrido de la Sangre, exploring Mexico and the 'Day of the Dead' - with brand new songs this show will follow in the footsteps of Lulu and The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, promising to be a feast for eyes and ears. We'll also be presenting the work of a leading voice in Argentinian theatre, Lola Arias. MINEFIELD is performed by six veterans of the Falklands/Malvinas war, receiving rave reviews at the Royal Court and internationally, and Xavier Bobés' Things Easily Forgotten is an extraordinary show taking audiences on an intimate and touching journey.

We are also thrilled to welcome Bijan Shebani to HOME to direct Annie Baker's quiet masterpiece Circle Mirror Transformation. Pulitzer prize-winning American playwright Annie Baker elevates ordinary people in ordinary places to something quite surreal and magical. Her humorous and heart-breaking play about an amateur acting class in Vermont presents Baker's wit and sensitivity to Manchester audiences for the very first time.

Dominic Hill returns to HOME after presenting his stunning Endgame here in 2016, with his next contemporary approach to one of the finest plays of the 20th century, A Long Day's Journey Into Night. Eugene O'Neill's devastating masterpiece shows a family's grief unravelling over the course of a single summer afternoon, with all the emotional power of a Shakespearean tragedy or Greek drama. And we head into the Autumn with a bold double bill of Othello and Macbeth in radically cut versions directed by Sean Holmes, whose explosive new take on Twelfth Night delighted our audiences in 2016.

We continue to collaborate with the most innovative companies and individual creators and look forward to sharing with you: Breach Theatre's new show The Drill, Scottee's Fat Blokes, Kneehigh's The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Actors Touring Company's Winter Solstice and the premiere of Gbolahan Obisesan's adaptation of the Man Booker shortlisted The Fishermen, by a major new voice in world literature, Chigozie Obioma."

FEB 2018 - SEP 2018
HOME PRODUCTIONS & COMMISSIONS:

• Grand Finale
  Presented by Hofesh Shechter Company & co-commissioned by HOME
  Wed 31 Jan - Sat 3 Feb
  Choreography and music by Hofesh Shechter
  Performed by Hofesh Shechter Company
  Theatre 1
  Press night Wed 31 Jan
  Internationally celebrated choreographer Hofesh Shechter will return to HOME with his latest work, Grand Finale, a spectacularly bold and ambitious new piece featuring 10 dancers. Designed by Tom Scutt with lighting by Tom Visser, this new work sees the company return to live music, played on stage by a band of six musicians. Grand Finale is at once comic, bleak and beautiful, evoking a world at odds with itself, full of anarchic energy and violent comedy. Filtering this irrepressible spirit, Shechter creates a vision of a world in freefall, part gig, part dance, pArt Theatre, and wholly original.

• Circle Mirror Transformation
  Presented by HOME
  Fri 9 - Sat 24 Mar
  Written by Annie Baker
  Directed by Bijan Sheibani
  Theatre 1
  Press night Wed 7 Mar
  HOME is pleased to present the first major UK revival of Circle Mirror Transformation since its run at the Royal Court in 2013. In a small town in Vermont, New England, five unlikely strangers come together in their community centre for a creative drama class for adults. The free-spirited Marty, recently divorced Schulz, former actress Teresa, the self-conscious high school student Lauren and Marty's quiet husband, James. Over six weeks of drama exercises and games ranging from the hilarious to the heart-breaking, their lives become entangled and transformed in the most humorous and moving ways. Annie Baker won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for drama and is considered one of the most talented playwrights to have emerged in recent years. Her quiet masterpiece, Circle Mirror Transformation won the 2010 Obie Award for Best New Play and was voted one of the top ten plays of 2009 by the New York Times, Time Out and The New Yorker. Bijan Sheibani, both theatre and opera director, was Associate Director of the National Theatre from 2010-2015, where he directed Barber Shop Chronicles. He won an Olivier Award for his production of Gone Too Far! (Royal Court/Hackney Empire/Albany) in 2009.

• PREMIERE
  ¡Viva! 2018
  The Tiger Lillies
  Corrido de la Sangre
  Presented by HOME
  Fri 20 Apr - Sat 5 May
  Theatre 1
  Press night Wed 25 Apr
  The Day of the Dead. A Corrido singer and his band return from the realm of the dead to haunt their killer and tell us their dark story of intrigue, vengeance, murder and the mayhem of a romance gone bad. This new, full length show blends stunning visuals with original music from the Oliver Award-winning and Grammy nominated Godfathers of alternative cabaret The Tiger Lillies. Set in a small dusty town in the lands between Mexico and the US, the singer relays the tale of his rise and fall and the songs of life at the border, where mythical creatures from Aztec times still haunt the night. This is a realm where folklore and real-life merge, where you can meet a knight, an evil king, a damsel in distress and the Saint of the Sinners. Anything is possible. Just don't believe everything you hear...

• Fat Blokes
  by Scottee
  Directed by Scottee in collaboration with Lea Anderson
  Commissioned by the Southbank Centre and HOME
  Tue 22 - Thu 24 May
  Theatre 2
  Trail-blazer performances
  Fat Blokes is a sort of dance show about flab, double chins and the men they are attached to - made by artist and fatso Scottee, coming to HOME for a run of trail-blazer performances before heading to Southbank Centre. Exploring what those who you'd rather not sit next to on the bus think about their own bodies. Fat Blokes uncovers why fat men are never sexy but always funny, always the 'before' and never the 'after' shot. Made in collaboration with Lea Anderson, Unskinny Bop and five fat blokes who've never done this sort of thing before. Prepare yourself for a show about pent-up aggression, riot grrrl, and the hokey cokey.

• Long Day's Journey Into Night
  Presented by HOME and Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
  Wed 9 - Sat 26 May
  By Eugene O'Neill
  Directed by Dominic Hill
  By arrangement with Josef Weinberger Limited.
  Theatre 1
  Press night Fri 11 May
  Long Day's Journey Into Night is arguably one of the greatest American dramas of the 20th century. The four members of the troubled Tyrone family each have their vice to dull their memories of their painful past and face their current trials. Over the course of one devastating day at their Connecticut summer home, the resentments of the family are exposed, pushing their bonds to the limit. Eugene O'Neill's moving and insightful Pulitzer Prize-winning play delves into the private lives and failings of the conflicted family while revealing insights into his own upbringing. Following the great Endgame (2016), HOME teams up again with Citizens Theatre Artistic Director Dominic Hill.

• The Drill
  Presented by Breach Theatre, in co-commission with HOME
  Thu 14 - Sat 16 Jun
  Theatre 2
  Press night Thu 14 Jun

"Acting is an emergency, and in an emergency you do whatever works. What you do in a fire drill may bear no resemblance to what you do in an actual fire, but your chances of survival are greatly improved by a past enactment of the drills" - Deb Margolin. Award-winning multimedia theatre-makers Breach have previously explored using performance to re-enact the past - from a 1985 clash between riot police and New Age travellers in The Beanfield

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