The Young Vic in South London has announced its programme for the rest of 2023.
About to start at the Young Vic is Further Than The Furthest Thing, from 9 March to 29 April 2023. Jennifer Tang’s visionary interpretation of Zinnie Harris’s award-winning modern classic stars Jenna Russell, Cyril Nri, Gerald Kyd, Archie Madekwe, Kirsty Rider and vocals by Shapla Salique.
The creative team includes Director Jennifer Tang, Designer Soutra Gilmour, Lighting Designer Prema Mehta, Sound Designer George Dennis, Composer Ruth Chan, Movement Director Ingrid Mackinnon, Voice and Dialect Coach Emma Woodvine, Musical Director Michael Henry, Illusions Designer John Bulleid, and Casting Director Charlotte Sutton CDG.
On 15 April 2023 comes The Fabric with Colour Vogue Ball, as Jay Jay Revlon and Young Vic Taking Part bring this Ballroom show back with a special birthday ball. Judges and DJs are to be announced at a later date.
From 19 to 20 May 2023 – for 24 hours – Ruth Wilson stars in The Second Woman: Wilson performs the same scene for a full 24 hours, with 100 different men. The scene is between a man and a woman in a relationship that has lost its creativity and romance. The performance is created by Nat Randall and Anna Breckon, and co-produced by LIFT in association with Ruth Wilson and House of Oz.
Ruth Wilson said in a press statement: “I have a feeling that The Second Woman will challenge all norms of what it means to be actor and audience, to be performer and observer. I’m interested in what happens in that space between us all; if we form a bond as we watch and anticipate the next play partner. This is a one-off, 24-hour experience of pure, spontaneous interaction. It will never happen again.”
From 27 June to 5 August 2023, Young Vic artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah writes and directs new play Beneatha’s Place. This satirical drama about history, power and the cost of letting go is set in Lagos in 1959 and the present day. The play is inspired by the 1950s civil rights drama A Raisin in the Sun. Joining Kwei-Armah in the creative team are Debbie Duru (set and costume design) and Mark Henderson (lighting design), with further creatives to be announced.
From 31 July to 11 August 2023 in the Young Vic’s Maria Theatre comes Sundown Kiki Reloaded, with creative direction by Jay Jay Revlon, and direction by Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu. The House of Telfar and the House of Dunn are back in this explosive show of theatre and ballroom, as the two families go head-to-head in an evening of pumping music, dance and partying that celebrates a Queerer London in all its glory.
The cast includes Amani, Asa Haynes, Diogo Varela, Emanuel Vuso, Georgie Lynch, Jay Lafayette Valentine, Joshua Asaré, Laura Sérgio, Sarah-Angel Sharma and Tatenda Shamiso; and creatives on the show include set designer Khadija Raza, sound designer and composer XANA, lighting designer Pablo Fernández Baz, costume designer John Bastos, movement assistant Omar Jordan Phillips and stage manager Sylvia Darkwa-Ohemeng.
Already announced Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play has now had its dates at the Young Vic confirmed. Kimber Lee’s time-jumping play will run from 18 September to 4 November 2023, directed by Roy Alexander Weise, with design by Moi Tran.
From 28 October to 4 November 2023 comes Tribe, a co-production between the Young Vic Theatre and the Beth Centre (Women in Prison). The show will be created with a collective of women who will work as a company devising in collaboration with a dynamic creative team, and explores and celebrates all the different forms that family can take – from single parent families to large communities, chosen families to blood relatives.
Coming next week to the West End, is the Young Vic’s acclaimed 2022 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, which comes to the Wyndham’s Theatre in London from 16 February 2023.
“I’m delighted to announce our upcoming shows in the Spring to Autumn 2023 programme at the Young Vic Theatre; a continuation of works about power, revolution and disruption. We are living in revolutionary times where both beauty and hardship lie in the constancy of change and I believe that one of the best guides to help steer us through is art, to enable us to interrogate, to disrupt and to inspire. Further than the Furthest Thing explores the impact of globalisation on communities and the need for a climate revolution; The Second Woman challenges power dynamics and defies our expectation of the theatrical artform, revolutionising how we tell stories and push beyond the boundaries of performance through epic event theatre; Beneatha’s Place sits in the revolutionary time of the first wave of independence across Africa, and the battles in modern day academia around whose histories are deemed valid, by whom and when; untitled fck mss s**gon play speaks to the revolution of representation that is happening and must continue in the theatre industry, ensuring this stays at the centre of the Young Vic’s work. This theme runs right through to our space at the Young Vic and the revolution inside our own four walls. The Young Vic’s ambitions to be an anti-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary house of art where all our communities are welcomed and can see themselves is brilliantly embodied through Taking Part’s THE FABRIC with COLOUR VOGUE BALL, Sundown Kiki Reloaded, and Tribe. We are proud to create a space for and with the ballroom community in our theatre, providing a platform where our young people and the ballroom community can joyously express themselves. At the Young Vic we are driven by bold innovation and the desire to entertain, challenge and captivate audiences in London, across the UK and internationally. These works speak to and inform our approach and we can’t wait to showcase them on our stages.”
Kwame Kwei-Armah, Young Vic Theatre Artistic Director
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