First Look: Wales National Theatre 2019 Season
Local and global questions are posed by new works
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National Theatre Wales’ 2019 season will be led by four brand new productions, all made with leading Welsh and Wales-based artists.
First Look: Wales National Theatre 2019 Season
‘The productions in 2019 include stories of hope, resilience and imaginative flights of fancy, brand new works, substantial tours and international collaborations. I’m particularly excited by the depth and diversity of the work exploring themes of truth and perception. From stories of rural Welsh life to space exploration, from watery, sensory worlds to personal freedoms and the right to choose your future, the season reflects the many questions facing us all, locally and globally.’ -National Theatre Wales’ Artistic Director Kully Thiarai
Making his return to the stage after 15 years, writer Ed Thomas‘ On Bear Ridge will be a stage play inspired by his childhood village – and the blurring of his memories of it.
For the first time, NTW will collaborate with pioneering theatre company Hijinx, as well as directors Kully Thiarai and Ben Pettitt-Wade and artists Seiriol Davies and Tim Rhys Evans to create Mission Control. With a professional and community cast of hundreds, this original show will examine the insatiable mythology that has always circled the story of man’s first landing on the moon.
Mike Brookes will direct Together and Alone, the latest instalment of his Storm Cycle, which explores themes of truth and testimony. This third production in the series will use text and spoken-word performance to reflect on Wales’ recent social and political uncertainty – as we move towards a withdrawal from the EU.
And in an international project with Wales in Venice 2019 for the Venice Biennale, artist Sean Edwards will create a new radio play, exploring the value of being the most honest version of oneself. NTW will co-produce the play to be broadcast live to his exhibition in Venice, which will later move to Wrexham.
In addition, four productions from NTW’s NHS70 season will tour to theatres and arts venues the length and breadth of Wales, and further afield. These include three of the festival’s monologues; Cotton Fingers, Peggy’s Song and The Stick Maker Tales, and Splish Splash, amulti-sensory, underwater production for young people made by Oily Cart that will tour special schools in Wales and England.
