Nottingham Playhouse

Highlights of theatre outside London 2019 – Part Three

Features, News, Regional, Touring
The Colour Purple Curve Leicester

Mark Ludmon continues his look at theatrical highlights outside of London in 2019. Birmingham Hippodrome is collaborating with Curve in Leicester on a new production of the musical, The Color Purple, based on the book by Alice Walker. It tells the turbulent life story of an African-American woman in America’s South, with a score by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray that draws on jazz, ragtime, gospel and blues. Directed by Tinuke Craig, it will be at Curve from 28 June to 13 July and at Birmingham Hippodrome from 16 to 20 July. Nottingham Playhouse will stage One Night In Miami… (7 to 22 June), Kemp Powers’ in-your-face imagined account of what happened in 1964 when four legendary figures came together in a motel room: heavyweight champion Cassius Clay, activist Malcolm X, American football icon Jim Brown and soul star Sam Cooke. First performed at the Donmar Warehouse in … Read more

Regional UK Theatre looking forward 2018

Features, Regional, Touring
NST Studio Theatre City

Mark Ludmon examines the year ahead for regional theatre in 2018. Bolton girl Maxine Peake has made her mark on TV and the London stage but she returns to her roots with her second play, Queens of the Coal Age. Based on the true story of four women in Lancashire during the miners’ strike in the 1980s, it will be at the Royal Exchange in Manchester from 28 June to 21 July. Also at the Royal Exchange, Maxine Peake will star in Sarah Frankcom’s new production of Beckett’s Happy Days from 25 May to 23 June. Other highlights coming up at the Royal Exchange include Julie Hesmondhalgh in Kendall Feaver’s new play The Almighty Sometimes and April De Angelis’s new adaptation of Frankenstein. A new production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard directed by Michael Boyd, the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, will come to the Royal Exchange … Read more