THE RSC will be ‘Making Mischief’ over the coming month.
The first new work festival in the newly opened Studio at The Other Place runs until August 27 and features new commissions by contemporary playwrights who challenge and question today’s society.
Led by Deputy Artistic Director Erica Whyman, the festival includes two new plays, Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier written by Somalia Seaton and Always Orange by Fraser Grace, directed by Nadia Latif and Donnacadh O’Briain.
It will also see the return of the award-winning Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. by Alice Birch, before runs in Edinburgh and London at Shoreditch Town Hall, and also Clean Break’s critically acclaimed one woman show Joanne performed by Tanya Moodie.
Seaton makes her RSC debut with Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the foot Soldier. The play peels away the privileged ignorance of middle-class tolerance to expose the deep wound of cultural tension cutting through modern England. Set in London, a racially-motivated attack on a student forces her teacher to confront the uncomfortable truth lurking beneath the veneer of community cohesion.
Grace returns to the RSC following his award-winning Breakfast with Mugabe. In Always Orange, Fraser presents a tragicomic exploration of how to be human in a world always on the edge. Set in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in central London, a survivor of the first attack, Joe, is convinced that he has found the key to turning the tide of destruction and restoring tolerance and understanding. But the city is in no mood to listen.
Birch’s Revolt. She said. Revolt again examines the language, behaviour and forces that shape women in the 21st century and asks what is stopping us from doing something truly radical to change them.
Joanne – performed by Tanya Moodie, who plays Gertrude in the RSC’s current production of Hamlet – explores the pressures on public services as one young woman buckles under pressures of her own.
Visit www.rsc.org.uk for tickets and further details.
