Paul Miller announces the remaining productions in his third season as Artistic Director of the Orange Tree. Plus the launch of the :DISCOVER campaign, with match funding from Arts Council England from the Catalyst:Evolve programme. In 2015-16 the Orange Tree had its biggest ever audience with 68,657 tickets sold nationwide. 27% visited for the first time. Full details in the OT’s Annual Review which can be downloaded here. This autumn alone the OT has toured Elsewhere to 21 other towns and cities.
- Ned Bennett returns to the OT following Pomona to direct the UK premiere of An Octoroon from the Pulitzer Prize nominee Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. The OBIE Award-winning play takes Dion Bouciaultâ??s original play and creates a pertinent new play about race.
- The first major revival of Clare McIntyreâ??s Low Level Panic is directed by JMK Award runner-up Chelsea Walker. It premiered at the Royal Court in 1988.
- Paul Miller directs Marivauxâ??s The Lottery of Love in a previously unseen version by John Fowles (The French Lieutenantâ??s Woman) setting it in Regency England.
- £12 tickets are available to under 30s for all productions Monday to Thursday evenings, with £15 previews for all.
- Performances will be captioned for the first time at the OT with Stagetext, in addition to already well established Audio Described Performance.
- The OT has launched :DISCOVER to raise £100,000 over the next three years. :DISCOVER enables us to innovate, unearth new plays to excite our audience and provoke a reaction beyond our in-the-round space. Match funding is provided through the Arts Council Englandâ??s Catalyst: Evolve programme.
- Previously announced, the UK premiere of Roland Schimmelpfennigâ??s Winter Solstice, directed by Ramin Gray, a co-production with Actors Touring Company.
- Twelfth Night is our Shakespeare Up Close production directed by Alex Thorpe and Primary Shakespeare is King Lear, directed by Imogen Bond. There will be Relaxed Performances for both. Last yearâ??s Shakespeare projects played to over 8,000 young people.
- The OTâ??s Take Part programme also includes a performance of Zero for the Young Dudes! by Alistair McDowall (Pomona) as part of National Theatre Connections, and the Orange Tree Theatre Young Company present My Generation about race and identity.
- Josie Long, Sharon D Clarke, Lemn Sissay, Jonny & the Baptists and Kieran Hodgson feature in OT Extras, our series of one night performances of the best comedy, music and theatre.
- The Orange Treeâ??s MA in Theatre Directing with St Maryâ??s University, Twickenham, will have a Festival of contemporary plays directed by the students from the course in July 2017.
- The OT Writers Collective, a group of eight exhilarating playwrights, selected by the OT to spend a year developing their crafts, are Sonali Bhattacharyya, Chris Bush, Daniel Foxsmith, Christian Graham, Sarah Grochala, Eve Leigh, John Oâ??Donovan and Joe White. They will create a response to An Octoroon under the title Uprising: an evening of theatre, politics and melodrama on 18 June.
Paul Miller, Artistic Director, says: â??At a time of increasing isolationism I am especially pleased that in 2017 we have new German and American plays and a fresh version of a major French classic, addressing the big issues of the day: feminism, race and the ever present danger of the far right. In 2016/17 we’ve collaborated with many new producing partners and played to record audiences across the country and this classic OT mix of plays promises to finish the season with a flourish.â?Â
Booking opens 24 November
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