Kiln Theatre Announces Productions For 2020
By: Stephi Wild Oct. 07, 2019
With her production of the world première of Anupama Chandrasekhar's When the Crows Visit in rehearsals, Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham today announces Pass Over, A Museum in Baghdad and The Glee Club which will be staged at Kiln Theatre in 2020, following the previously announced Snowflake by Mike Bartlett.
Indhu Rubasingham said today, "Since we re-opened we have put new work at the centre of our programming. This season continues to amplify unheard voices which speak to our times; whether it's the young African American male in this time of Black Lives Matter or the idea of 'Culture', who owns it and who appropriates it in the Middle East, or the voice of the white working class community in the North of England. This work together reflects the connectivity and humanity of our diverse communities. Today we announce three extraordinary plays directed by three Artistic Directors.
"Antoinette Nwandu's Pass Over is a timely, powerful piece of writing, and gives us the perfect opportunity to explore what our new auditorium offers; following his beautiful design for Blues in the Night, Robert Jones returns to design this production for the round, a first for this theatre. I'm also thrilled that Paapa Essiedu will be making his Kiln Theatre debut.
"It is a pleasure to welcome two formidable and brilliant directors, Erica Whyman and her production of Hannah Khalil's A Museum in Baghdad in a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company; and Kate Wasserberg and her revival of Richard Cameron's The Glee Club in a co-production with Out of Joint and Cast."
In the year since Kiln Theatre re-opened, the theatre has staged a season of seven world premières, with White Teeth, Blues in the Night and The Son becoming the best-selling shows in the theatre's history. Over 100,000 tickets have been sold across the theatre's productions and cinema. Of the theatre audiences, 35% are from Brent and Camden, and 50% are first time attendees to Kiln Theatre.
Further 2020 programming will be announced shortly, including Kiln Theatre's participation in Brent's 2020 London Borough of Culture.
PASS OVER
Cast includes Paapa Essiedu
Directed by Indhu Rubasingham; Designer Robert Jones
13 February - 21 March
Press night: 19 February at 7pm
A lamppost. Night. Two friends are passing time. Stuck. Waiting for change.
Inspired by Waiting for Godot and the Exodus, Antoinette Nwandu fuses poetry, humour and humanity in a rare and politically charged new play which exposes the experiences of young men in a world that refuses to see them.
Antoinette Nwandu is a New York-based playwright. Her plays include Breach, Pass Over, 4 Sustenance, Black Boy and the War, Vanna White Must Die and FLAT SAM. She is the recipient of The Whiting Award, The Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, The Negro Ensemble Company's Douglas Turner Ward Prize, and a Literary Fellowship at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference. Her plays have been included on the 2016 and 2017 Kilroys lists, and she has been named a Ruby Prize finalist, PONY Fellowship finalist, Page73 Fellowship finalist, NBT's I Am Soul Fellowship finalist, and two-time Princess Grace Award semi-finalist.
Paapa Essiedu plays Moses. His Theatre credits include The Convert (Young Vic), Pinter One (Harold Pinter Theatre), Hamlet, King Lear (RSC, Kennedy Center and Brooklyn Academy Of Music, New York - Ian Charleson and UK Theatre Award winner for Best Actor), Racing Demon (Theatre Royal Bath), The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Mouse and his Child (RSC), You For Me For You (Royal Court Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Tobacco Factory), King Lear (National Theatre), Black Jesus (Finborough Theatre), Outside on the Street (Pleasance Theatre), and Dutchman (Orange Tree Theatre). For television, his work includes Gangs of London, Press, The Miniaturist, Black Earth Rising, Revolting, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Kiri, Not Safe for Work and Utopia; and for film, Murder on the Orient Express and Women at the Well (Screen International Star of Tomorrow 2017).
Artistic Director of Kiln Theatre Indhu Rubasingham directs. Her work for the company includes When the Crows Visit, Wife, White Teeth, Holy Sh!t, Red Velvet (which transferred to New York and later to the Garrick Theatre as part of the Kenneth Branagh Season) and Handbagged (winner of Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre - also West End, UK tour, Washington DC and New York). Other productions for Kiln Theatre include The Invisible Hand, A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes, Multitudes, The House That Will Not Stand, Paper Dolls, Women, Power and Politics, Stones in His Pockets, Detaining Justice, The Great Game: Afghanistan, Fabulation and Starstruck. Other theatre credits include The Great Wave, Ugly Lies the Bone, The Motherf**cker with the Hat (Evening Standard Award for Best Play), The Waiting Room (all National Theatre), The Ramayana (National Theatre/ Birmingham Rep), Belong, Disconnect, Free Outgoing, Lift Off, Clubland, The Crutch and Sugar Mummies (Royal Court), Ruined (Almeida), Yellowman and Anna in the Tropics (Hampstead Theatre), Secret Rapture and The Misanthrope (Minerva, Chichester), Romeo and Juliet (Chichester Festival Theatre ), Pure Gold (Soho Theatre), The No Boys Cricket Club and Party Girls (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Wuthering Heights (Birmingham REP), Heartbreak House (Watford Palace Theatre), Sugar Dollies and Shakuntala (Gate Theatre), A River Sutra (Three Mill Island Studios), Rhinoceros (UC Davis, California) and A Doll's House (Young Vic).
A MUSEUM IN BAGHDAD
By Hannah Khalil
Directed by Erica Whyman; Designer Tom Piper; Lighting Charles Balfour
Music & Sound Oğuz Kaplangi; Movement Tanushka Marah; Video Nina Dunn; Dramaturgs David Greig, Pippa Hill
22 April - 23 May
Press night: 28 April at 7pm
In 1926, the nation of Iraq is in its infancy, and British archaeologist Gertrude Bell is founding a museum in Baghdad. In 2006, Ghalia Hussein is attempting to reopen the museum after looting during the war.
Decades apart, these two women share the same goals: to create a fresh sense of unity and nationhood, to make the world anew through the museum and its treasures. But in such unstable times, questions remain. Who is the museum for? Whose culture are we preserving? And why does it matter when people are dying?
Ahead of performances at Kiln Theatre, A Museum in Baghdad, opens at Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon on 22 October, with previews from 11 October, and runs until 25 January.
Casting for the run at Kiln Theatre to be announced.
Hannah Khalil said today, "I realized quite early in the writing process that the play needed to address not one but two time periods: 1926 with the initial opening of the Museum by Gertrude Bell, and 2006 post looting as the Museum team try to ready it for reopening to the public. As a culture, we rarely touch on Middle Eastern stories in the consideration of history in Europe and when we do it's always from a Western point of view. The responsibility of telling this important story is not one I take lightly, and my research has been over many years. I'm very grateful to the many organisations, academics and individuals who have shared their expertise with me during that time. I'm awed by the diligence and care that director Erica Whyman and the team at the RSC have taken in every aspect of the production. To now have the opportunity to put the play in front of a London audience at a theatre I've long admired is extremely exciting."
Hannah Khalil's previous work includes Interference (National Theatre of Scotland), The Scar Test (Soho Theatre) and Scenes from 68* Years (Arcola Theatre). Her work for radio includes The Deportation Room and Last of the Pearl Fishers, both for BBC Radio 4. She was awarded The Arab British Centre's prize for Culture 2017.
Erica Whyman directs. She joined the RSC as Deputy Artistic Director in January 2013. As part of the Midsummer Mischief Festival in 2014 she directed The Ant and the Cicada, Revolt. She said. Revolt again., and The Christmas Truce in the RST. In 2015 she directed Hecuba and in 2016 The Seven Acts of Mercy and A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Play for the Nation, followed by the revival of Revolt. She said. Revolt again. for the Making Mischief Festival. In 2017, she directed The Earthworks for the Mischief Festival, and Miss Littlewood and Romeo and Juliet in 2018. She was Chief Executive of Northern Stage from 2005 to 2012, where her work includes Son of Man, Ruby Moon, Our Friends in the North, A Christmas Carol, A Doll's House, Look Back in Anger, Hansel and Gretel, Oh! What a Lovely War (nominated for two TMA awards), The Wind in the Willows, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (nominated for Best Director at the 2011 TMA Awards), The Borrowers, and the UK première of Oh, the Humanity (Edinburgh/Soho Theatre). In 2012 she won the TMA award for Theatre Manager of the Year. Other work includes The Birthday Party (Sheffield Crucible), The Shadow of a Boy (National Theatre), The Flu Season, Marieluise, Witness, Les Justes (Gate Theatre), The Winter's Tale, The Glass Slipper (Southwark Playhouse). In November 2016, she was the recipient of the Peter Brook Special Achievement Award. She was also Artistic Director of Southwark Playhouse (1998 - 2000) and then Artistic Director of The Gate Theatre, Notting Hill (2000-2004).
A Museum in Baghdad was co-commissioned by the RSC and the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh.
THE GLEE CLUB
Directed by Kate Wasserberg; Designer Mark Bailey; Musical Director & Sound Dyfan Jones
Lighting Katy Morison; Associate Director Sita Thomas; Assistant Director Gavin Joseph
4 - 27 June
Press night: 8 June at 7pm
When I go back those days in my head, it's to that pit and the fun I had with a bunch of old men singing songs.
It's the Summer of 1962. The hard-working, hard-drinking members of the Edlington Miners' Glee Club are preparing for their local gala. But as times change, they realise that the 'good old days' may not last forever.
A poignant and hilarious comedy, Richard Cameron's renowned play celebrates the shared experiences and close bonds between a group of unlikely friends.
Ahead of performances at Kiln Theatre, the production tours to Cast, Doncaster (28 February - 7 March), Theatr Clwyd (10 - 14 March), Litchfield Garrick (24 - 28 March), Malvern Theatre (7 - 11 April), Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds (21 - 25 April), Northern Stage (28 April - 2 May), Yvonne Arnaud (5 - 9 May), Oldham Coliseum (12 - 16 May), Leeds Playhouse (19 - 23 May) and Theatre Royal York (26 - 30 May).
Richard Cameron writes for theatre, television and radio, and won the inaugural Dennis Potter Award in 1997 for his television play Stone, Scissors, Paper; and the Mental Health in Media Award for his radio play, The Kon Tiki 2 Expedition. He has written a number of critically acclaimed stage plays, including Can't Stand Up For Falling Down, which won a Fringe First and The Independent Theatre Award, The Glee Club for The Bush Theatre, which transferred to the West End before a national tour, and was adapted as a radio play for Radio 4; and Great Balls of Fire, the story of Jerry Lee Lewis, was produced for Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, and transferred to the West End. He adapted Silas Marner for BBC Radio 4.
Kate Wasserberg is Artistic Director of Out of Joint for whom she has directed Rita, Sue and Bob, Too (Bolton Octagon, Royal Court Theatre and tour). She was the founding Artistic Director of The Other Room in Cardiff - which won Fringe Theatre of the Year at the UK Stage Awards and was nominated for a Peter Brook Empty Space Award under her leadership, where her directing credits included The Dying of Today, Play/Silence, Sand and Seanmhair. Her other directing credits include The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Glengarry Glen Ross, Roots, Gaslight, The Glass Menagerie and A History of Falling Things (as Associate Director for Theatre Clwyd), All My Sons and Insignificance (Theatre Clwyd), The Barnbow Canaries (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Ten Weeks (Paines Plough), The Knowledge (Dirty Protest at The Royal Court Theatre) and Saturday Night Forever (Aberystwyth Arts Centre/ Edinburgh).
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