Headlong season announcement 2023
Headlong has today announced their 2023 Season - a programme of innovative new writing, and reimagined classics that address our current social and political moment, bringing award-winning artists and bold new voices to audiences throughout the country.
Holly Race Roughan, Artistic Director of Headlong says: “I am beyond excited to bring this season of work to audiences across the country. These plays are page turners with political substance, and the artists behind them are remarkable. The season has been designed to facilitate national conversation around some of the most critical questions of this moment: climate emergency, misogyny, cultural appropriation, migration and colonisation; via compelling theatre making. Each show breaks new ground in its own way, be that through the process the play is produced by or the approach to the conversation it is brokering. From the Barbican, to Bolton. Chichester Festival Theatre to Manchester International Festival, Headlong’s lifeblood is collaboration. This season’s partners inspire us and reach right across the country.”
Announced February 16th, Headlong will present a striking new revival of Arthur Miller’s visceral and compelling masterpiece, A View from the Bridge directed by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart (Paradise Now! The Bush). A co-production with Chichester Festival Theatre, Octagon Theatre Bolton and Rose Theatre. A View from the Bridge follows Beatrice and Eddie Carbone who have built an all-American life in Brooklyn. When wife and husband take in their relations, two hard-working Sicilian immigrants, the family should pull together. Instead, everything starts to unravel. Eddie included. A romantic spark between Eddie’s orphaned niece and one of the handsome new arrivals, spins their stories beyond control. Eddie finds his darkest desire is in danger of being exposed, and his violent passion risks setting aflame everything the family has built. The production will premiere at the Octagon Theatre Bolton (8 - 30 September) before transferring to Chichester Festival Theatre (9 - 23 October) and Rose Theatre (31 October - 11 November).
In a world premiere co-production, Headlong, Royal Exchange Theatre, Factory International for Manchester International Festival and Young Vic Theatre will present Kimber Lee’s untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play directed by Roy Alexander Weise and designed by Moi Tran, Resident Artist + Designer at Headlong. Lee’s sharply-comic play which explores identity, invisibility and misrepresentation won the International Award for The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2019. The production will open at the Royal Exchange Theatre (24 June - 22 July) as part of Manchester International Festival before transferring to the Young Vic later this autumn (18 September - 4 November).
Headlong continues its commitment to rethinking theatre making during a climate emergency, with the UK premiere and national tour of Miranda Rose Hall’s A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction presented in partnership with the Barbican. Building on an innovative touring model conceived by director Katie Mitchell, Headlong will present the play at venues throughout the country where a different team of local theatre makers will mount the production following guidelines created by Mitchell. Eliminating the need for physical travel, A Play for the Living will be the first off-grid tour of its kind in the UK, with every performance powered by renewable bicycle technology. Five directors, each local to one of the tour venues, have joined the project - they are; Kay Michael (Theatre Royal Plymouth 28 June - 4 July), Mingyu Lin (York Theatre Royal 25 - 29 September), former Headlong Origins artists Ellie Taylor (New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme 19 - 24 June) and Nyasha Gudo (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry 10-13 May) and Nathan Powell (Shakespeare North, Liverpool 16 - 20 May). A Play for the Living will open at the Barbican, London (26 - 29 April), starring Lydia West in her stage debut, directed by Katie Mitchell with design by Moi Tran. Further casting and creative teams for each of the venues to be announced.
Headlong works with some of the UK’s most exciting voices to commission distinctive new works and future classics for audiences across the country. Artists currently under commission include Johnny Flynn & Robert MacFarlane, Sami Ibrahim, Charlie Josephine (Headlong’s writer-in-residence 22/23), Eve Leigh, Laura Lomas, Cordelia Lynn, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Winsome Pinnock, Joel Tan and Amanda Wilkin (Headlong’s writer-in-residence 21/22). Since 2019 Headlong has delivered gender parity across its commissions with at least one in four new works written by an artist from the global majority. The company’s commitments to justice and equality across all areas of their work are constantly being reviewed and updated. Headlong’s commitments on race, gender, and disability and for LGBTQIAA+ communities are available to view on the company’s website here.
Committed to exploring how it can commission and work with artists in a different way, Headlong is bringing freelance artists into the heart of the organisation with its annual writer-in-residence and Resident Artist + Designer programmes. Moi Tran is Headlong’s inaugural Resident Artist + Designer for 23/24 and Charlie Josephine is Headlong’s writer-in-residence for 22/23. The company’s new Resident Artist + Designer position will enable set designers and visual artists to work with Headlong to explore new and progressive ways of working with a particular focus on sustainable practice. The position includes studio space and a bursary. Headlong continues to champion emerging theatre makers from across the UK, outside of London, with its artistic development programme Headlong Origins. The current Headlong Origins artists are Anna Berentzen (Manchester), Callum Berridge (Worksop and Sheffield), Emily Ling Williams (Sussex), Sam Hardie (Fife and Edinburgh) and Mandeep Kaur Glover (Leicester). Recruitment for Headlong Origins 2023 will open this Spring.
Headlong are also thrilled to announce the appointment of four new trustees – Paddy Dillon, Lucinda Harvey, Prime Isaac, and Toni Racklin who join existing board members Justin Audibert, Cas Donald, Sarah Ellis, Julia Head, Jaqueline Hurt, Nicky Jones, Lil Lambley, Donna Munday (Chair), Sir Trevor Phillips and Lesley Wan.