Opening the 2017 winter season in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (The Winter Selection) at Shakespeare’s Globe will be Romantics Anonymous, a new musical directed by Emma Rice.
The piece also has a book written by Rice, lyrics by Christopher Dimond, and music by Michael Kooman, presented by special arrangement with Radio Mouse Entertainment.
This will be followed by The Secret Theatre, a new play by Anders Lustgarten, directed by Matthew Dunster, and Apocalypse Meow: Crisis is Born, an alternative Christmas show from post-post-modern cabaret sensation Meow Meow.
The new year brings a new production of All’s Well That Ends Well, directed by Caroline Byrne, and The Captive Queen, a reimagining of John Dryden’s Restoration drama Aureng-zebe, directed by Barrie Rutter and co-produced with Northern Broadsides.
The winter season closes with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons – a reimagining, created by Gyre & Gimble and recomposed by Max Richter, and the return of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Matchgirl and Other Happier Tales, adapted and directed by Rice, in co-production with Bristol Old Vic.
Artistic director Emma Rice said: “I’ve always seen the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as a little box of treats, encouraging the primal need to tell and hear stories and inviting tales and magic to unfurl beneath the flicker of the candles.
“For my final season as artistic director at the Globe, I knew I wanted to present the most delicious, unique and beautiful box of delights. The Winter Selection will take us to a singing chocolate factory in France, the inner sanctum of Elizabeth I’s court, the dark and dangerous world of All’s Well That Ends Well, the palaces of India, the emotional depths of Vivaldi, and the tender chaos of Meow Meow’s Christmas, before we tumble back down the rabbit hole with the return of The Little Matchgirl.”
Opening 20 October, Romantics Anonymous is adapted from the French-Belgian film Les Émotifs Anonymes. Written by Jean-Pierre Améris and Philippe Blasband, the musical follows Angélique, a gifted chocolate maker inhibited by social anxiety, and Jean-René, the awkward boss of a struggling chocolate factory, in a love story about finding the courage to be happy.
Romantics Anonymous will be the final new production directed by Rice as artistic director of the Globe. Christopher Dimond and Michael Kooman, whose previous musicals include Dani Girl and Judge Jackie and who are currently writing the score for an animated Disney television series, will be making their London professional debuts as musical theatre writers.
Romantics Anonymous is presented by special arrangement with Radio Mouse Entertainment, a Tony Award-winning New York-based theatre and media production company that has been developing the project for the musical stage since 2014.
On 20 December, Meow Meow returns to the Globe for a Christmas show like no other, Apocalypse Meow: Crisis is Born.
Following her appearance in Rice’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream last summer, the post-post-modern cabaret artist brings her extravaganza to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
Conceived, created and performed by Meow Meow (with a little help from her friends), the show was originally commissioned by the Southbank Centre. Meow Meow’s career has encompassed sell-out concerts at Lincoln Center, New York and the Sydney Opera House.
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.