ONE WHO WANTS TO CROSS has its UK Premiere at the Finborough Theatre This Month

Alice Hamilton directs the UK premiere of One Who Wants To Cross by award-winning French playwright Marc-Emmanuel Soriano at the Finborough Theatre for a four week limited season on Tuesday, 31 January 2023 (Press Nights: Thursday, 2 February 2023 and Friday, 3 February 2023 at 7.30 pm).

One Who Wants To Cross has no identity.

Their nationality has little meaning. They are from a country where leaving is forbidden.

They could be a factory worker, a geographer, or a journalist.

They could be escaping by beach, open sea, desert, or forest.

They are leaving everything behind them to reach the other side and make a new start over there, risking everything - including unimaginable suffering and often death.

Bringing a contemporary human tragedy into devastating focus, One Who Wants To Cross is a dramatic meditation on migrants, wherever their place of origin...

Recipient of multiple French awards (Centre National du Théâtre, Guérande, Influenscènes, TAPS, Panta Théâtre), One Who Wants To Cross received its world premiere at the Théâtre du Rond-Point, recorded for France Culture, and also been staged as a reading - including director Stanislas Nordey's production at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, starring Emmanuelle Béart. Acclaimed director Alice Hamilton now directs the UK premiere at the Finborough Theatre.

Playwright Marc-Emmanuel Soriano began his career as an actor in Paris (Théâtre National de la Colline, Théâtre du Rond-Point, Cité Internationale, Théâtre National de Strasbourg), then continued as an author for various companies (Théâtre de l'Envol, Amin Théâtre) and an agitator and transmitter of art with his company Théâtre Suivant. His other plays include The Parliament of Forests, The Other Side, and Holy Day.

Translator Amanda Gann is an actress and scholar in French and Theatre Studies. Trained in the US, France, and the UK, she collaborates with multilingual, interdisciplinary, and transnational companies such as the Poets' Theatre, Boston, with whom she originated a bilingual production of Samuel Beckett's Not I/PasMoi (MAC, Belfast). Now a doctoral student at Harvard University, she is writing a thesis on the interwar repertoire of the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. Her recent translations include Jean-René Lemoine's Face à la Mère (Institut Français, London) and L'Adoration (Actions Caribéennes Théâtrales, New York City).

Director Alice Hamilton's work includes The Memory of Water, The Dumb Waiter, Paradise, Every Day I Make Greatness Happen (Hampstead Theatre), Blood Wedding, Echo's End (Salisbury Playhouse), The March on Russia, German Skerries (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond) While We're Here, Visitors (Bush Theatre), Orca, Orson's Shadow (Southwark Playhouse), Thirty Christmases (Supporting Wall at the New Diorama Theatre), Eventide (Arcola Theatre and Tour), Fear of Music (National Tour for Up in Arms and Out of Joint), and At First Sight (Latitude Festival and Tour). She has worked as Staff Director at The National Theatre, and directed development workshops and rehearsed readings with The Royal Court Theatre, National Theatre, Almeida Theatre and High Tide.

Clarisse Makundul Productions is a new theatre production company dedicated to presenting diverse voices. It seeks to challenge beliefs, broaden minds and promote social discourse, offering a platform for storytellers and creators to collaborate and work on projects from inception of the idea to staging and production. Forthcoming productions include a rehearsed reading of Facing Mother by Jean-René Lemoine at the Park Theatre in November 2022, and a full production of Under the Kundè Tree by Clarisse Makundul in May 2023.

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