Fresh from his award-winning screen success with The Crown, former Royal Court artistic director Stephen Daldry will return to the stage to helm two world premiere plays in the Young Vic’s newly announced 2017/18 season. It is the last season programmed by David Lan, who steps down later this year after 18 years as the Young Vic’s artistic director.
Daldry directs the world premiere of The Jungle (6 December-6 January), written by the founder of Good Chance Theatre based on Calais refugee stories, and The Inheritance (2 March-5 May), the latest play by leading American writer and The Whipping Man author Matthew Lopez, a two-parter about gay life in New York City a generation after the AIDS crisis.
Other upcoming Young Vic highlights announced today include: a main revival of The Brothers Size (19 January-14 February), the 2007 debut play (premiered in the Young Vic’s Maria studio) by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who went on to Oscar-winning success with Moonlight, directed by Bijan Sheibani; a revival of Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner’s My Name is Rachel Corrie (29 September-21 October, The Clare), performed by rising star Erin Doherty and directed by JMK Award 2017 winner Josh Roche; and as reported earlier, the much-anticipated UK premiere of five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Fun Home (18 June-1 September).
These are in addition to the previously announced:
• Billie Piper reprises her award-winning role in Simon Stone’s new version of Yerma
• Sienna Miller and Jack O’Connell lead the cast as Maggie and Brick in the Young Vic production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Apollo Theatre
• Juliet Stevenson reunites with director Natalie Abrahami in Arthur Kopit’s Wings
• Ramin Gray and David Grieg’s acclaimed production The Suppliant Women
• Nina: ‘a story about me and Nina Simone’ with Josette Bushell-Mingo
• Edinburgh Festival hit How To Win Against History by Seiriol Davies
• Genesis Future Directors Award 2017 winner Nancy Medina directs Yellowman by Dael Orlandersmith
Commenting on today’s announcement, artistic director David Lan said:
“Putting a season together is always a mixture of chance and intention. My intention is always that the voices you hear at the Young Vic will be the most urgent, the most in need of being heard. Chance is that I happen to be in the right place at the right time to hear them.
“Patterns emerge: in all the shows in this new season you’ll hear voices from the edge – refugees, the black working class, young gay women, young gay men – engaged voices raised in protest and in discovery.
“The Jungle by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, the founders of Good Chance Theatre, tells the story of the refugee camp at Calais. It centres on the meeting of the Afghans, the Kurds, the Somalis, the Syrians with the UK volunteers, younger and older, who arrived in Calais to offer help. Directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, it’s a dark story told in a disarmingly light style. With Miriam Buether transforming our theatre into an Afghan Café, we are delighted to co-produce this with the National Theatre as part of our Horizons series of shows putting the experience of refugees at the forefront.
“The first anyone in the UK heard of the now celebrated Tarell Alvin McCraney was our production of his first play The Brothers Size. An instant classic, winner of the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award, we toured it to enormous success. A decade later, we’re reviving it for a new generation, this time in our Main House. As before, it’s a co-production with the Actors Touring Company, directed by Bijan Sheibani.
“The Inheritance is a major new work by an exceptional young writer. Set in present-day New York City, two decades after the worst of the AIDS epidemic, it asks: ‘What do gay men hand down from one generation to the next? What do we learn from our past? How do we heal? How do we change?’ Hilarious and profound, in two parts presented over two evenings, it’s directed by Stephen Daldry and designed by Bob Crowley.
“It was always obvious that the Young Vic is the natural London home for the phenomenon that is Fun Home. After five Tony Awards and a Broadway run, we’re delighted to welcome Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s ground-breaking and immensely enjoyable musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel about growing up gay in a close complicated family. Sam Gold directs a UK cast.
“My Name is Rachel Corrie was edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner from Rachel Corrie’s diaries. This now famous account of one young woman’s opposition to the plight of the Palestinians is, sadly, as topical as ever. It’s directed by this year’s JMK Award winner Josh Roche.”
