The Olivier Award-nominated play will run at the Cherry Lane Theatre from the 6th July until the 30th August.
It has been announced Award Winning Writer Benedict Lombe’s ‘Shifters’ will transfer to Off-Broadway this summer, officially opening on the 15th July.
The show, directed by BAFTA Nominated and Evening Standard Theatre Award Winner Lynette Linton, arrives in New York following acclaimed runs at the Bush Theatre and the West End.
This epic and universal love story is about the enduring power of memory and young love. Meet Dre and Des, they are young, gifted, Black. He stayed. She left. Years later they come crashing back into each other’s lives, carrying new secrets and old scars. Caught in the space between memory and reality, they struggle to navigate the shifting borders that threaten to rewrite their past and reshape their future.
In addition, it has been announced that Heather Agyepong (The Power, School Girls; or The African Mean Girls Play), whose performance received critical acclaim and an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in the original production, will reprise her role as “Des”. She is joined by Daniel Ezra (Netflix’s All American, The Running Man), who
takes on the role of “Dre”.
Talking about the news Benedict Lombe said: “When I was invited to write a Black British love story for the stage by our director Lynette Linton, I thought a lot about the existing canon in this genre. Who gets to be viewed and celebrated as a romantic lead? Whose cultures and histories are brought into focus? Who gets to be audacious? Who gets to be
complex and flawed and funny and intelligent and joyful and fully human? SHIFTERS was born from this intentionality and specificity – a universal love story between a British Congolese woman and a British Nigerian man – that demanded nothing less than to shift the theatrical canon. Both onstage and offstage. We’ve journeyed from West London to the West End. And as we now make our way to the West Village, I’m so thrilled to be bringing the love story of Des and Dre to Cherry Lane Theatre – the most audacious theatre in town. See you there.”
Tickets will go on sale on the 11th May.