Print Room at the Coronet Announces its Most Ambitious Season Yet for 2017

Artistic Director Anda Winters today announces Print Room at the Coronet's next season of work in its new, permanent home. The Spring/Summer 2017 programme, in Notting Hill's reinvigorated Victorian play and opera house, features four world premieres. Seminal British playwright Howard Barker will open the season. Three of the works are being created especially for the space, including Russell Maliphant's site-inspired return to his early choreography and two specially commissioned works: Erratica's Remnants and poet Glyn Maxwell's new adaptation of Babette's Feast. The renowned Kathryn Hunter is devising and starring in a second Blixen project, Out of Blixen. World renowned film and theatre composer Jocelyn Pook completes the programme with her mixed-media work Hearing Voices. This season reinforces the theatre's commitment to producing and presenting a varied and bold repertoire of work.

Anda Winters said of the programme, "It's hugely inspiring to be working with such a rich mixture of artists, emerging and established. Many of them -- Kathryn Hunter, Howard Barker, Russell Maliphant, Glyn Maxwell and Jocelyn Pook -- I have admired for years. Importantly, we are delighted to be introducing some of our more recent discoveries, Erratica and Riotous Company. This newer generation of theatre makers reassures us of the continuing vitality and diversity of theatre."

Coinciding with the announcement of the new season, Princess Eugenie of York was today announced as Patron of Print Room at the Coronet in Notting Hill Gate, celebrating the re-opening of the Coronet as a theatre and art space for Kensington and across London.

The fifth season of work for the company commences in January, opening with the world premiere of In the Depths of Dead Love (16 January - 11 February) a dark new comedy from Howard Barker telling the story of an exiled poet who scrapes a living by renting out a bottomless well to suicidal locals. Howard Barker has worked closely with Print Room at the Coronet whilst developing this production, his first new work in five years. An extract was first presented in 2013 during Screaming in Advance, a two-day festival of readings from Barker which took place at Print Room, the venue also produced Lot and His God in 2012. The production will be directed by Barker's long-term collaborator Gerrard McArthur, with casting to be announced.

maliphantworks (28 February - 11 March) will see award-winning choreographer, Russell Maliphant, curate an evening of intimate works tailored for the Coronet's stage. Featuring past and present international collaborators, Maliphant will bring some of his early choreography to this beautiful West London stage. Russell Maliphant is an Associate Artists of Sadler's Wells and has received many of the highest theatrical accolades during his career, including an Olivier Award, two South Bank Show Awards and three Critics' Circle Awards. This production will see the Print Room at the Coronet cement itself as a stage for presenting contemporary dance.

Out Of Blixen (3 - 22 April) by Riotous Company will receive its world premiere at Print Room at the Coronet. Inspired by the life and writings of the Danish author Karen Blixen, (known to many as the heroine of Out of Africa), this production will be directed by the award-winning Kathryn Hunter. This will be the second time Print Room at the Coronet and Riotous Company have worked together, having staged Scherzo for Piano and Stick earlier this year. Developed with the Print Room through 2016, this production is devised and performed by Kathryn Hunter, Nikola Kodjabashia, Marcello Magni and Mia Theil Have, with dramaturgy by Paul Tickell, original music and sound design by Nikola Kodjabashia and design by Luis F. Carvalho.

Following on from this story of Karen Blixen's life, Print Room at the Coronet will present a new telling of Blixen's much-loved short story Babette's Feast (8 May - 3 June). This world premiere of Glyn Maxwell's commissioned stage adaptation will see the creative team behind Tooting Arts Club's sensational Sweeney Todd in a pie shop reunite with Bill Buckhurst directing. Babette's Feast tells the tale of Babette Hersant, a refugee from revolutionary Paris who throws a heavenly banquet to express her gratitude to the remote Norwegian village that gave her solace. Babette's Feast was made into an Oscar-winning film in 1987 and has continued to delight readers and audiences across the globe. 2017 marks 55 years since Blixen's death. Print Room at the Coronet will celebrate the author's legacy in a typically innovative style.

Remnants (12 June - 1 July) from Erratica is an electro-folk opera based on a memoir by Courtney Angela Brkic telling the story of one woman's encounter with the aftermath of war crimes at Srebrenica, and her family's connections to the Holocaust in Bosnia 50 years before. Patrick Eakin Young will direct this tale of memory, family and the trauma that passes between generations, with performances from four singers and a dancer. Having been in workshops at Print Room at the Coronet earlier this year, the production mixes Balkan folk songs with original vocal arrangements and compositions by award winning composer Christian Mason and electronic soundscapes by DJ and installation artist Shelley Parker. Juxtaposing voices from the past with deep bass electronics, this original score evokes the pain of history and the secrets that lie beneath the ground.

Hearing Voices (12-15 July) by composer Jocelyn Pook, directed by Emma Bernard, combines the testimony of Pook's great aunt, who spent much of her life in an asylum, with that of four other women diagnosed with mental illness; artists Bobby Baker and Julie McNamara; Mary Pook, another of Jocelyn's relatives; and seamstress Agnes Richter, who stitched cryptic texts into a jacket she wore in a German asylum at the turn of the last century. Singer Melanie Pappenheim duets live with recordings of the women's words, protests and laughter and striking visuals from Dragan Aleksic. Accompanying visual art installations, by Dragan Aleksic, will appear in Studio in addition to the live performance.

Poetry at the Print Room will continue to run throughout the season with dates to be announced in due course.

Print Room at the Coronet's current production¸ The Tempest, began previews last night. Directed by Simon Usher the production will play until 17December.

Photo by Marc Brenner

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