Kwame Kwei-Armah announces Young Vic’s new season with the message “Welcome Back and Welcome Home”
Photo credit: Aaron Imuere
The Young Vic has announced its plans to welcome audiences back through its doors for the first time since its 50th Birthday celebrations in October 2020.
Artistic Director, Kwame Kwei-Armah has put together a fantastic season, focusing on extraordinary stories and the role of the Young Vic as a “home-away-from-home for our community”.
The season will open on 9 July with Changing Destiny by Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri, based on the 4,000-year-old Egyptian poem of Sinuhe the Warrior King, directed by Kwei-Armah, and designed by award-winning architect Sir David Adjaye. The cast is yet to be announced.
A cutting-edge new venture, AI, created by Genesis Fellow and YV Associate Director Jennifer Tang and Company is another one to watch. AI is a play developed alongside artificial intelligence (AI) to generate human-like dialogue and script. The show will run from 23 – 25 August.
The much-anticipated Hamlet starring Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife, The Good Fight) runs from 25 September to 13 November, reuniting Jumbo with her long-time collaborator Greg Hersov, with further casting to be announced. The show is currently sold out but keep checking the Young Vic’s website for updates.
James Graham returns with a new play Best of Enemies, in association with Headlong. Inspired by the documentary by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon, the play explores the 1968 battle between “cunningly conservative” William F Buckley and “iconoclastic liberal” Gore Vidal. The play follows Graham’s success with Labour of Love and Quiz and will be directed by Jeremy Herrin (This House, People, Places and Things). It will run from 2 December 2021 – 22 January 2022.
Other highlights include an exciting new play Klippies by Jessica Siân, directed by the Genesis Future Directors Award recipient Diyan Zora and running from 4 – 13 August and the Young Vic’s exciting new venture, Best Seat In Your House, which is a brand-new way to stream live theatre. An immersive, multi-camera live broadcast experience, audiences at home can cut live between any of the cameras placed around the theatre, almost like switching seats in the auditorium at will! Audiences can choose between The Director’s Chair and The Director’s Cut, the former allowing autonomy over their view and the latter being a more traditional viewing. Ben Okri’s Changing Destiny will be the first show available to experience via this innovative platform.
Of the season, Kwame Kwei-Armah said: “This pandemic has wielded an unquantifiable wound to theatre-makers and theatres, the repercussions of which we will continue to feel for a long time. We have seen a year of racial reckoning reverberate through our sector, a cry of pain and a call to do better. To announce a new season of work fills my heart with optimism, as it comes with the hope that artists can return to their craft, and as we rebuild, we improve on what was good, and take time to undo the broken systems and structures.”
Tickets will go on sale to Friends of the Young Vic on Thursday 20 May at 12 noon. Public booking will open on Thursday 27 May at 12 noon. Find out more about the season here.
