In London, there are murmurings of change on the horizon. Some of this may take a while to reach fruition, but three brand-new production companies have emerged in the last few weeks.
NEWS: Four new casts take turns to star in Donmar Warehouse production of Constellations at the Vaudeville Theatre
Donmar Warehouse artistic director Michael Longhurst will revive his acclaimed Royal Court, West End and Broadway production of Nick Payne’s Constellations which will run at the West End’s Vaudeville Theatre from 18 June to 12 September 2021.
‘The creativity & visual style really impress’: ASSEMBLY – Donmar Warehouse (Online review)
Assembly, the first production from the Donmar Local company, shows a lot of promise, combining an enthusiastic group of performers with a creative team eager to explore technical boundaries in the presentation of meaningful stories.
‘A bold theatrical experiment’: ASSEMBLY – Donmar Warehouse (Online review)
Assembly is a new piece in a livestream experiment that mixes live action, animation and sound. Initially planned to play live at the venue last July, it has now been reconfigured as an online show but still using the Donmar Local Company at the heart of the production.
NEWS: Winners announced for The Stage Debut Awards 2020
Newcomer Sam Tutty scooped two awards for his star-making performance in the hit West End musical Dear Evan Hansen at The Stage Debut Awards 2020. The awards were presented as a virtual ceremony filmed at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.
NEWS: The Black British Theatre Awards reveal 2020 nominees & announce the ceremony will be broadcast on Sky Arts
The BBTAs have revealed the 2020 Black British Theatre Awards nominee list, voted almost entirely by the public and representing some of the finest work by Black performers and creatives in UK theatre. The 2020 awards ceremony will air on Sky Arts this autumn, as part of the channel’s free to air line-up.
‘Marvellously inventive & thoroughly compelling’: BLINDNESS – Donmar Warehouse
Simon Stephens and Juliet Stevenson create a perfectly beautiful and haunting installation for our times in The Blindness at the Donmar Warehouse.
’As vivid as anything you saw on stage 5 months ago’: BLINDNESS – Donmar Warehouse
Ben and Max Ringham’s work for Blindness is a masterpiece, a 70-minute performance that layers story, sound effects, music and lighting design to immerse the audience in a pandemic experience.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Blindness at the Donmar Warehouse
The Donmar Warehouse has opened its doors to Blindness, a socially distanced sound installation based on José Saramago’s novel.
’An extraordinary piece of storytelling’: BLINDNESS – Donmar Warehouse ★★★★★
Blindness is adapted by Simon Stephens from a novel by José Saramago and tells the story of an epidemic in which people suddenly go blind.
NEWS: Donmar Warehouse will reopen temporarily with socially distanced sound installation featuring Juliet Stevenson
The Donmar Warehouse is to reopen temporarily from 3 to 22 August 2020 with a socially distanced sound installation – Blindness, based on the dystopian novel by Nobel-prize winning José Saramago, adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Walter Meierjohann.
The cinefication of theatre predates lockdown: What are the implications?
For better or worse, the association between theatre, television and film has only grown closer in the last ten years, not just with artists moving between the different genres but also in the adoption of cinematic technique within productions.
‘Diana Quick gives a bravura performance’: MIDNIGHT YOUR TIME – Donmar Warehouse (Online review)
This revival of a 2011 HighTide hit, reconceived for streaming, stars Diana Quick and is intimate and quietly moving.
Recalling Tom Hiddleston in CORIOLANUS: ‘One of the best nights of theatre of my life’
It is not often that one reviews a play one saw six years ago, but with the forthcoming National Theatre At Home streaming of the Donmar Warehouse production of Coriolanus, right now seems a strangely appropriate time to recall one of the best nights of theatre of my life.
NEWS: National Theatre at Home screens Tom Hiddleston’s Coriolanus & A Streetcar Named Desire with Gillian Anderson
The National Theatre has announced its third tranche of archive shows that will be streamed every Thursday at 7pm BST via its YouTube channel as part of lockdown initiative National Theatre at Home.
The best play I’ve seen for each of the past 10 years (aka the agony-to-choose list)
Not to let a decade of theatre bloggery go by without marking the occasion, to kick things off, I’ve compiled a list of my favourite play for each year I’ve been blogging. It has been fun revisiting my best-of lists but absolute agony narrowing each list down to just one.
‘Feels particularly timely’: A NUMBER – Bridge Theatre
If the intimate play A Number feels a bit lost in the vast space of the Bridge, the performances are big enough to give it the required punch.
‘Excellent precision delivery’: FAR AWAY – Donmar Warehouse
Churchill’s vision two decades ago in Far Away now seems even more prescient and accurate of planet Earth’s downhill spiral: endless wars and realignments, climate change, imminent environmental catastrophe.
Best of the Blogs: Leopoldstadt, Far Away, Nora, People Show 137 & more
In our continuing series, editor Lisa Martland picks out some of her Top Picks from the last week of theatre (to 16 February 2020) including Maryam Philpott’s thoughts on Tom Stoppard’s new play Leopoldstadt at the Wyndham’s Theatre.
‘Pitch perfect’: FAR AWAY – Donmar Warehouse
Caryl Churchill wrote Far Away in 2000 and, 20 years on, it feels more current by the moment.