TROUBLE IN MIND, THE OPEN HOUSE and More Set for Print Room's 2017-18 Season
By: BWW News Desk Jun. 01, 2017
Print Room at the Coronet has today announced its Autumn/Winter season, featuring: the London transfer from Theatre Royal Bath, of ground-breaking US playwright Alice Childress's courageous Trouble in Mind; Coronet International Festival, celebrating the work of artists from across the world; and Winter's Tales, a series of Christmas readings by friends and famous faces for children and their families. The season concludes with the return of multi-award-winning US playwright Will Eno, whose The Open House, directed by former RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd, is being presented in a second collaboration with Theatre Royal Bath.
Trouble in Mind, which will open the season, sees Laurence Boswell's production transfer after a critically acclaimed run at Theatre Royal Bath's Ustinov Studio. Coronet International Festival brings a host of artists from around the globe, animating the beautiful Victorian space with an eclectic and daring mix of art forms. The specially curated Winter's Tales offers children and families a selection of seasonal stories told by much loved actors and personalities. In a co-production with Theatre Royal Bath, directed by former RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd, The Open House sees Print Room at the Coronet welcome back its good friend the hugely acclaimed US playwright Will Eno (following Title and Deed, 2015 and Thom Pain (Based on Nothing), 2012).
Anda Winters said "More than ever this multidisciplinary season of work demonstrates Print Room at the Coronet's unconventional, open and collaborative approach to theatre. In partnership with Theatre Royal Bath we present two hugely important, innovative US playwrights. Alice Childress's Trouble in Mind transfers to us following its critically acclaimed run at the Ustinov Studio. Our second co-production, in early 2018, is Will Eno's The Open House. November sees the inaugural Coronet International Festival. This month of work, will feature an eclectic collection of art forms and practitioners from across the globe. The full line-up will be announced shortly, and I can promise four weeks of fearless, boundary-pushing works, which I know London's diverse, adventurous and open-minded audience will embrace.
Opening the Autumn/Winter season at Print Room at the Coronet is Trouble in Mind by trailblazing 1950's American playwright Alice Childress. Following its hugely successful run at Theatre Royal Bath's Ustinov Studio in November 2016, the play tells the story of a group of African-American actors rehearsing for a Broadway production, in a theatre dominated by white men. By turns comic and dramatic, Childress's Trouble in Mind, which has not been presented in London for over 20 years, remains disturbingly relevant, despite having been written over sixty years ago.
Wiletta Mayer is a talented African-American actress who has spent a lifetime building a career in the theatre. Now she is on Broadway, rehearsing Chaos in Belleville, an anti-lynching play with a white director. As rehearsals progress, Wiletta finds it increasingly difficult to relate to the part she is playing. Will she be able to overcome her misgivings and let the show go on?
Trouble in Mind is followed by the Coronet International Festival. This ambitious month-long festival will blur the lines between arts forms with an array of work that crosses genres and defies expectations. Full details of the programme will be announced very shortly.
Winter's Tales will see well-known names and faces take to the main stage, reading their favourite festive tales. Over two weeks, a different performer will appear each evening to read a story of their choosing.
The season's second transfer from Theatre Royal Bath, The Open House, will begin London previews on 18 January 2018. This darkly hilarious tale from Obie Award-winning playwright Will Eno subverts the archetypal family drama in his signature, inimitable style. Directed by former RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd, The Open House will receive its UK premiere at the Ustinov Studio in November, as also announced today. This will be the third collaboration between the two venues in an important ongoing partnership bookending the Autumn/Winter season.
Son and Daughter have come home to celebrate their Mother and Father's wedding anniversary, but the atmosphere is strained and the dog is nowhere to be seen. Just as they hit stalemate, things start to take a very unexpected turn.
Throughout the season Poetry at the Print Room will continue with readings from poets including David Harsent, Maria Stepanova, Michael Symmons Roberts and Sinead Morrissey. September will also see the return of the sell-out Dead Poets Live series. The first of these events will feature Glenda Jackson reading the role of North London poet Stevie Smith (1902-71), having portrayed her on screen in the 1978 film 'Stevie'. All proceeds from the evening will go to refugee charity Safe Passage. An additional two Dead Poets Live events are programmed, with full details to follow.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Laurence Boswell is an Olivier Award-winner, Artistic Director of the Ustinov Studio and an Associate Artist of the RSC. His recent productions include A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Theatre Royal's Main House, and Trouble in the Mind, The Mother, Intimate Apparel and The Spanish Golden Age Season in the Ustinov Studio.
For the RSC his directing credits include: Women Beware Women (the Swan); Beauty and the Beast (RSC); The Dog in the Manger (the Swan); Bartholomew Fair (the Swan) and The Painter of Dishonour (the Other Place). He curated and directed the RSC's Golden Age Season in 2004, which later transferred to the West End and to Teatro Espaniol, Madrid.
Alice Childress was born in 1916 and raised during the Harlem Renaissance she grew up to become first an actress and then a playwright and novelist. A founding member of the American Negro Theatre, she wrote her first play, Florence, in 1949. Childress became in 1952 the first African-American woman to see her play (Gold Through the Trees) professionally produced in New York. In 1955, Childress's play Trouble in Mind was a critical and popular success from the beginning of its run off-Broadway at the Greenwich Mews Theatre. Trouble in Mind received a well-reviewed off-Broadway revival in 1998 by the Negro Ensemble Company and has since been produced by Yale Repertory Theatre, Center Stage, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, and Arena Stage.
Childress is perhaps best known today for A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich, her 1973 novel about a 13-year-old black boy addicted to heroin, which was subsequently made into a movie in 1978. Other plays written by Childress include: Just a Little Simple (1950), Wedding Band: a Love/Hate Story in Black and White (1966) and Gullah (1984).
Alice Childress died in New York in 1994.
Will Eno's Broadway debut play, The Realistic Joneses, was the winner of a Drama Desk Special Award. Other writing credits include The Open House (Off-Broadway), which won the Obie Award for Playwriting and most recently Wakey, Wakey (Off-Broadway).
Michael Boyd's directing credits for Ustinov Studio include Right Now, The Harvest and The Big Meal. Other recent directing credits include The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures (Hampstead Theatre) and Tamburlaine (Broadway). He was formerly Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The Print Room began life in September 2010 in a converted printing warehouse just off Westbourne Grove, with a mission to present an exciting mixture of theatre, dance, concerts, art exhibitions and a variety of multidisciplinary collaborations. The theatre is now realising its unique artistic vision in its new, permanent home, Notting Hill's iconic Coronet. Visit www.the-print-room.org or follow @the_printroom for more information.
Since 2011, The Ustinov Studio has celebrated UK premieres of work from around the globe. Laurence Boswell and his team have identified, researched and developed new plays from around the world - as well as unearthing forgotten gems - marking the Ustinov as a studio epicentre for UK premieres. Laurence Boswell's inaugural season was in Autumn 2011 with Classic European plays in repertory: The Phoenix of Madrid by Calderon de la Barca in a new translation by Laurence Boswell, Iphigenia by Goethe in a new translation by Meredith Oakes, and The Surprise of Love by Marivaux in a new translation by Mike Alfreds.
Autumn/Winter 2017-18 Season:
14 September - 14 October 2017
Evenings: 7.30pm, Matinees: Saturdays 3pm
Trouble in Mind
by Alice Childress
Directed by Laurence Boswell
Press Night: 21 September 2017
Coronet International Festival
Full line up to be announced in due course
Tickets and timings to be released soon
6 - 22 December 2018
Winter's Tales
Tickets and timings to be released soon
18 January - 17 February 2018
Evenings: 7.30pm, Matinees: Saturdays 3pm
The Open House
by Will Eno
Directed by Michael Boyd
Press Night: 25 January 2018
Poetry at the Print Room
24th October 2017, 7.30pm
with David Harsent
7th November 2017, 7.30pm
Russian Poetry with Maria Stepanova
5th December 2017, 7.30pm
with Michael Symmons Roberts and Sinead Morrissey
Dead Poets Live: Stevie Smith with Glenda Jackson
24th September 2017, 7pm
Further Dead Poets Live events
28th October 2017, 7.30pm
29th October 2017, 7pm
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