Oxford Playhouse has announced off its Spring 2023 Season, with the very best drama, dance, comedy, digital work, and family shows playing across its stages.
Upcoming plays
Bill Kenwright’s stage version classic movie, The Shawshank Redemption takes to the stage in February. Starring Joe Absolom and Ben Onwukwe, this thrilling stage production examines friendship, injustice, friendship and hope behind the bars of a maximum-security facility.
Oxford Playhouse is to be a co-producer with international touring company Complicité, on their new production, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead, based on the novel by Nobel Prize winning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. A thought-provoking, wry and otherworldly murder mystery, this is a tale about the cosmos, poetry, and the limitations and possibilities of activism.
In March, Pilot Theatre’s award-winning production of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses tours to The Playhouse. The story of Romeo & Juliet is reimagined in a world where love between a Nought and a Cross is forbidden – a captivating drama of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided society.
Another co-production in May sees Oxford Playhouse team up with Inspector Sands and China Plate for a reimagining of Emily Bronté’s Wuthering Heights. The famous love story of Heathcliff and Cathy comes to life in this inventive and intelligent production, with Inspector Sands characteristic humour, passion, and pathos.
A new comedy of devotion, desire and dancing queens comes to the stage in May with The Way Old Friends Do written by Ian Hallard and directed by Mark Gatiss. Two school friends in the late 80s tentatively come out: one as gay, the other – more shockingly – as an ABBA fan. Thirty years later they reunite to form the world’s first ABBA tribute band – in drag. Simultaneously tender and laugh-out loud funny, this heartfelt story will appeal to anyone who understands how it feels to be a fan.
Other productions include Oxford Playhouse Young Company who return to the main stage with Lee Hall’s adaptation of Carlo Goldini’s A Servant To Two Masters. Paul Simpson, Oxford Playhouse
Music
Highlights of the Season include: the folk-rock band Fairport Convention and Grammy nominated alternative cabaret The Tiger Lillies who delve into their back catalogue presenting their most famous songs alongside new surprises.
Family audiences
For family audiences, Unexpected Twist is brought to life by The Children’s Theatre Partnership (Animal Farm, Holes)- a re-telling of Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist by one of the best-loved figures in children’s books Michael Rosen. Combining two stories in one: Rosen’s story and the Dickens classic that inspired it. Two stories that twist together in unexpected ways. And for the youngest audience members watch out for the popular Room on the Broom, based on the book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler comes to the main stage at the end of March. While everyone’s favourite dragon Zog returns in July to bump and roar his way through another adventure.
Dance
For dance lovers, the award-winning Ballet Black, now in their 21st year, present a double bill of new and original work by award-winning choreographers Will Tuckett and Mthuthuzeli November.
Digital stage
For the digital stage, Transience from Hitcher Encounters is a newly curated, interactive production that whisks the audience through a suspenseful adventure to find a missing artefact that has been sucked inside a magical arcade game. A one-on-one phone call experience is personalised for each audience member – no two Transience performances are alike.
Comedy
The comedy season gets underway with Rob Newman, live on stage, fresh from for his BBC Radio 4 series Rob Newman On Air Next up, on January 29; Playhouse patron, Stewart Lee performs his brand-new show Basic Lee on the main stage from Monday, January 30, to Saturday, February 4. In March, Chris McCausland takes the stage in Speaky Blinder – a stand up show about life, family, and loads of other nonsense as well. Later in Spring, Nick Mohammed with The Very Best & Worse of Mr Swallow, as well as Dr John Cooper Clarke performing stand up poetry from his new collection I Wanna Be Yours.
For antique lovers Talking Antiques & A Little Bit of Nonsense takes to the stage on April 16 – listen to how Philip Serrell started out on his auctioneering career, how Charles Hanson set up a thriving business, and how Charlie Ross ended up flying across the world to sell ‘old bangers’. All three will be kept in check by Christina Trevanion.
Community drama
The very best of Oxford University Student drama is presented in February with George Gerswin’s Tony award-winning musical An American in Paris featuring the hit songs I Got Rhythmn and Stairway to Paradise; followed by a new production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which in a time of ecological crisis asks can humans control nature?
From Monday, January 23 to Saturday, January 28, Oxford Operatic Society (OXOPS) is set to stage Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s iconic musical Evita. Oxford Theatre Guild is presenting the funny and heart-warming tale of a woman who triumphed against all the odds in Nell Gwynn by Jessica Swale; and Musical Youth Company of Oxford (MYCO) let lose their inner goth inside the spooky mansion of the eccentrically macabre The Addams Family.
Tickets at Oxford Playhouse are priced from £10 and are available from the Box Office on 01865 305305 or book online at www.oxfordplayhouse.com
