Troupe Announces The World Première of a New Adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's A SINGLE MAN at Park Theatre
The production opens in Park200 at Park Theatre on 21 October, with previews from 19 October, and runs until 26 November.
By: Stephi Wild May. 04, 2022
Troupe today announces the world première of a new adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man by Simon Reade. Directed by Philip Wilson, the production opens in Park200 at Park Theatre on 21 October, with previews from 19 October, and runs until 26 November.
California, 1962. College professor George is grieving the death of his long-term partner Jim. As a middle-aged gay Englishman living in the Los Angeles suburbs, he is an outsider in every way. Haunted by his past and unable to move forward, we follow him on one very ordinary day. But for George, this is going to be a day like no other...
A Single Man features in the Guardian's 100 Best Novels Written in English, where it is described as "a work of compressed brilliance". Known to many through Tom Ford's film, Christopher Isherwood's masterpiece is now given a wry and compassionate retelling in Simon Reade's new adaptation for the stage.
Powerful and sexy, A Single Man is a darkly amusing study of grief, love and loneliness from the celebrated writer of Goodbye to Berlin, the inspiration for Cabaret.
Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) was among the most celebrated writers of his generation. He left Cambridge without graduating, worked as a tutor and a secretary, briefly studied medicine and then published his first novels, All the Conspirators and The Memorial. Between 1929 and 1939, he lived mainly abroad, including four years in Berlin, which inspired his novels Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, on which the musical Cabaret is based. He also wrote four plays and a travel book with the poet W. H. Auden. In 1939, Isherwood moved to America, where he settled in Hollywood, became a Hindu and wrote for the film studios. He took US citizenship in 1946. In America, he wrote five more novels, including Prater Violet, Down There on a Visit and A Single Man, and kept prodigious diaries. He collaborated with his spiritual teacher Swami Prabhavananda on a translation of the Bhagavad Gita and produced another travel book and a biography of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. In the late 1960s, he turned to autobiography; in Kathleen and Frank, Christopher and His Kind and My Guru and His Disciple, Isherwood openly articulated the gay identity he had only implied in his fiction. Amongst his last work is October, one month of his diary with drawings by his partner from 1953 onward, American painter Don Bachardy.
Simon Reade's work for theatre includes Private Peaceful (Garrick Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, Hamburg Kammerspiele, 59E59 Theaters and TBG Theater, New York City and UK tour), David Copperfield (Barn Theatre, Cirencester), An Elephant in the Garden (Poonamallee Productions), A Pure Woman (Dorchester Arts), Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain, A Room With a View, Moon Tiger (Theatre Royal Bath and UK tours), Bliss/Mutluluk (Arcola Theatre), Pride and Prejudice (Sheffield Theatres, Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, Theatre Royal Bath and UK tour), Twist of Gold (Polka Theatre), Strindberg's Apartment (New Diorama Theatre), Toro! Toro! (Salisbury Playhouse), Midnight's Children (Royal Shakespeare Company and Theater Trier), The Scarecrow and His Servant (Southwark Playhouse), Not the End of the World, The Mozart Question, Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark (Bristol Old Vic), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (TMA Award, Bristol Old Vic and Polka Theatre), Epitaph for the Official Secrets Act (Royal Shakespeare Company), and Tales from Ovid (Royal Shakespeare Company and The Young Vic). Film and television includes Journey's End, Private Peaceful and What You Will. Books include Dear Mr. Shakespeare: Letters to a Jobbing Playwright and Cheek by Jowl. He was previously Literary Manager at The Gate Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Artistic Director at Bristol Old Vic, Producer at Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Filter Theatre and Development Producer at BBC Television, Tiger Aspect Productions and Stolen Picture.
Director Philip Wilson's work in theatre includes Starcrossed (Wilton's Music Hall), The Boy with the Bee Jar (Hope Theatre), Perfect Nonsense, After the Dance (Theatre by the Lake), The Star, The Norman Conquests, Noises Off, Doctor Faustus, The Astonished Heart, Still Life (Liverpool Playhouse), As You Like It (Storyhouse, Chester), Beacons (Park Theatre), his own adaptations of Philip Pullman's Grimm Tales (Oxo Tower Bargehouse and Shoreditch Town Hall), The Three Lions (St. James Theatre and UK tour), How Many Miles to Babylon? (Lyric Theatre, Belfast), Toro! Toro! (UK tour), Twist of Gold (Polka Theatre), Sixty-Six Books (Bush Theatre and Westminster Abbey), The Importance of Being Earnest, Travesties (Birmingham Rep), If Love Were All, In Praise of Love (Minerva Theatre, Chichester), The Found Man (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), Un Uomo Trovato (Teatro della Limonaia, Florence), Ain't Misbehavin' (Sheffield Theatres) and Breaking The Code (Northampton Theatre Royal). He was Artistic Director of Salisbury Playhouse from 2007-2011 where he directed The Game of Love and Chance, The Constant Wife, The Picture, Private Lives, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Winslow Boy, his own adaptation of J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country, What the Butler Saw, People at Sea, Alphabetical Order and Corpse!; and directed and designed Blackbird, Faith Healer and Toro! Toro! - TMA Award nomination.
Troupe's latest production was The Sweet Science of Bruising by Joy Wilkinson at Southwark Playhouse, which transferred to Wilton's Music Hall, and was nominated for an Off West End Award for Best New Play. Other recent work includes Rasheeda Speaking by Joel Drake Johnson at Trafalgar Studios, which starred Tanya Moodie, Elizabeth Berrington, Sheila Reid and Bo Poraj and was nominated for five Off West End Awards, including Best Production. Other productions at Southwark Playhouse include the centenary year revival of Dear Brutus by J. M. Barrie and The Cardinal by James Shirley, which starred Stephen Boxer and Natalie Simpson for which she won the Ian Charleson Award. It was supported by an inaugural MGCfutures Bursary Award. Troupe's previous rediscoveries at the Finborough Theatre - Rodney Ackland's After October, Robert Bolt's Flowering Cherry and R. C. Sherriff's The White Carnation, which transferred to Jermyn Street Theatre - have been nominated for a total of five Off West End Awards.
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