Following the celebratory reopening of Birmingham Rep this autumn with critically acclaimed productions of East is East, the brand new musical What’s New Pussycat? and the presentation of Grenfell: Value Engineering, Artistic Director Sean Foley announces a new collection of work to follow his own production of the classic comedy The Play What I Wrote.

Featuring six world premieres, the season continues Foley’s aim of bringing artistically ambitious popular theatre to the Rep and Birmingham: The programme includes brand new musicals and new writing that explores issues of class and race, reinventions of classics, and combines work from established and new talent alike. Representing the diversity of people and artistic form in UK theatre, the season also marks a clear determination to put artists and talent development at the heart of the Rep’s work. 

Highlights include George Orwell’s Animal Farm (22 January-5 January 2022), The Covid-19 Variations: A Piano Drama (8 & 9 February 2022), Playboy of the West Indies – The Musical (10 June - 2 July 2022) and the previously reported Bugsy Malone (27 July-14 August 2022).

Foley said:“Re-opening The Rep after such a long close-down has been an exhilarating, somewhat hair-raising, and occasionally genuinely electrifying experience. Welcoming audiences back, and re-starting work with great artists, has had an extraordinary rejuvenating effect: it is the life-blood of any theatre, and everyone working at The Rep has been thrilled by the response to our productions. We are so grateful that our 25th Anniversary production of East is East went on to re-open the NT’s Lyttleton, and that What’s New Pussycat? has been such a huge hit with audiences. Now, we continue to toast The Rep’s 50th Anniversary in its Centenary Square home with new shows that innovate, investigate and celebrate. I am particularly thrilled that Birmingham artists are well represented throughout the season, and that Madeleine Kludje will be directing her first show as Associate Director for The Rep. For over 100 years The Rep has been the home of the new in UK theatre, and we are as excited as ever to invite audiences to the original ‘you had to be there’ experience of live theatre.”

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