Bristol Old Vic
Artistic Director Tom Morris has announced Bristol Old Vic’s Autumn season, which will see the company throw open the doors to its newly refurbished theatre. Patron Daniel Day Lewis as a “sublimely beautiful theatre”.
This re-opening is the culmination of Morris and Executive Director Emma Stenning’s vision for Bristol Old Vic, seeing the transformation of the Georgian auditorium,Paintshop and back-stage areas to create a 21st Century home for theatre-makers and theatregoers. These past 18 months, during the refurbishment, Bristol Old Vic has continued to produce a full programme of work; not only in the Studio, but across Bristol, and even outside the theatre on King Street.
The reopened theatre will be baptised by John O’Keefe’s Wild Oats directed by Mark Rosenblatt, whose company will also devise Does My Society Look Big in This? – an up to the minute satire on current news and events – with writer Stephen Brown and Tom Morris. The theatre will then once again give itself over to Bristol Jam – the country’s only festival of improvised performance, before director Sally Cookson returns, following her critically acclaimed Treasure Island, to direct a new imagining of JM Barrie’s classic tale Peter Pan as the Christmas production.
In the Studio, the company will enter a first time collaboration with Sherman Cymru, for Katherine Chandler’s brilliant and vivid new play Before It Rains. Running in tandem with Peter Pan this festive season is the theatre’s annual production for younger audiences, Hey Diddle Diddle, directed by Miranda Cromwell.
Bristol Old Vic will continue to invite ground-breaking theatre companies to Bristol as part of the Inspiring Visitors strand including, for the first time, Cheek by Jowl who will launch their national tour of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (24 October – 3 November). Inspiring Visitors will also appear in the Studio with highlights including Iron Shoes’ Mad About the Boy (27 – 29 September); Fuel’s Ring (16 – 20 October); You’re Not Like Other Girls Chrissy (23 – 27 October) and Chris Goode & Company’s God/Head (1 – 3 November). Bristol Ferment continues to go from strength to strength with Sleepdogs’ The Bullet and The Brass Trombone (A Bristol Old Vic Ferment Commission, 14 – 17 November) andI Could Have Been Better (A Bristol Old Vic Ferment co-production with Idiot Child, 3 – 6, 9 – 13 October).
More information at www.bristololdvic.org.uk
