The Donmar Warehouse has unveiled details of its 2017 season, which will see Lenny Henry taking to the stage.
This new season, titled ‘Power’ will feature two plays and a musical about the struggle for, the rise and exercise of power.
Opening the new season of work at the theatre will be Limehouse, a new play by Steve Waters which imagines what happened behind closed doors in a key moment of political history and the formation of the SDP which split the Labour party in 1981. Running from the 2nd March until the 15th April, the cast will include Paul Chahidi as Bill Rodgers and Debra Gillett as Shirley Williams and will be directed by Polly Findlay.
This is Britain 1981.One Sunday morning, four prominent Labour politicians – Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins and David Owen – gather in private at Owen’s home in Limehouse, east London. They are desperate to find a political alternative. Should they split their party, divide their loyalties, and risk betraying everything they believe in? Would they be starting afresh, or destroying forever the tradition that nurtured them?
This will then be followed by a production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui take to the stage from the 21st April until the 17th June. It will star Lenny Henry, who will be making his Donmar debut as Ui, directed by Simon Evans.
Chicago! A city of jazz and gangsters, prohibition and poverty. Amongst the murk of the Great Depression, there’s room for a small time crook like Arturo Ui to make a name for himself.
Ui and his henchmen just want to look after you, to offer protection for workers, for jobs, for businesses. Nothing to fear. But a little bribery here, some harmless corruption there, and soon something much more dangerous takes hold.
The final production to be confirmed in the season is a new musical written by Josie Rourke and Hadley Fraser. The Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee Takes Oral Evidence on Whitehall’s Relationship with Kids Company will run at the theatre from the 24th June until the 12th August 2017.
What happens when something goes wrong? Who holds us accountable? On 15 October 2015, as part of an inquiry into ‘The collapse of Kids Company’, Camila Batmanghelidjh and Alan Yentob gave evidence to The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. Hadley Fraser, Josie Rourke and composer Tom Deering have transformed that evidence session into a new musical.
For more information on the productions and to book tickets visit: http://www.donmarwarehouse.com/#xf1HBbRstxBGKxWa.97