The festival will form part of the the theatre’s Autumn season and 30th anniversary celebrations.
The Camden’s People Theatre has announced the return of The State We’re In, the three week festival exploring UK democracy, politics and the public realm, which will run from October 22nd – November 10th 2024.
The festival will be headlined by Zakiyyah Deen’s debut play Why A Black Woman Will Never Be Prime Minister. It was picked up by CPT after a sharing at Tara Arts in 2023, and shepherded by CPT towards full (co-)production as a Home Run commission.
Across the span of the festival, there are shows about the economy (It’s the Economy, Stupid), the benefit system (The Mute Messiah), the care system (The Daisy Chain), political participation/representation (Andy Smith’s Citizens’ Assembly), food banks (Carmen Collective’s The Food Bank Show), the climate crisis (Shybairn) and more. The festival aims to offer audiences a new angle or way to engage with where the UK is now, where it’s been and what it’s becoming.
The overall season will be the last one programmed by outgoing Artistic Director, Brian Logan, and will feature over 40 works, including: Consumed, a new show from some of the talents behind CPT’s 2023 hit Choose Your Fighter; as well as The Spectacular, Light Moving Company’s impish take on British colonialism and Irish Republicanism, and I Dream in Colour, a run of Jasmin Thien’s CPT seed commission on the intersection between disability and immigrant culture.
Meanwhile, the season will also marks Black History Month and 30 years since the Rwandan genocide with I Am Leah, a play by BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Jo Ingabire Moys. CPT will also join forces with a host of theatres for Voila! Festival as it expands the reach of panlingual and cross-border theatre with a new multi-venue model.
The season will conclude with a double-bill of Sh!t Theatre’s immortal festive shows: Sh!t Actually – first commissioned for CPT’s 25th birthday celebrations, and Sing-along-a-Muppet Christmas Carol.
Brian Logan, outgoing Artistic Director of CPT, says: “After programming nearly 250 seasons of work at CPT, at a rough estimate, I feel like I’m going out on a high note with autumn 2024, which has a little bit of all the things that make 58-60 Hampstead Road such a thrilling place to be. In an ever-changing London, less and less hospitable to radical DIY art activity in the centre of the city, the work CPT does – championing wild new ideas from young artists who dream big – is more vital than ever.“
To book tickets for the season visit: https://cptheatre.co.uk/