Headlong and the Barbican, have at this time introduced that Lydia West (It’s a Sin, Inside Man) will make her stage debut within the UK premiere of A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction by award-winning playwright Miranda Rose Hall.
Directed by Katie Mitchell, West will carry out the position of Naomi on the Barbican from 26 – 29 April, forward of a nationwide tour throughout the UK, which can see a special native actor and director tackle the manufacturing at every venue. Each efficiency can be powered by bicycles peddled in actual time all through the length of the present.
“The difference between death and extinction is this: death is to cease to exist. Extinction is to extinguish. I think of death as individual. Extinction is collective.”
Naomi is a part of a touring theatre firm and so they have made a play particularly for you – those that reside via extinction – besides the actors haven’t proven up but. We don’t know why, and perhaps they’ll, however within the meantime, Naomi has a plan. Miranda Hall’s darkly humorous and uplifting play explores what it means to be human in an period of synthetic extinction.
A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction and the following tour, will see Mitchell draw on and additional her work on the Sustainable Theatre? undertaking, which she initially conceived with the help of the French choreographer Jérôme Bel and Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne.
Opening on the Barbican the UK premiere can be designed by Moi Tran. Mitchell and the inventive crew will produce blueprints containing sustainability guides which can be given to every subsequent venue within the first off-grid tour of its type within the UK. Local groups will stage and carry out the play, throughout the parameters of the blueprints and utilizing the identical renewable bike know-how, due to this fact eliminating the necessity for bodily journey. Headlong will current A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction at Barbican London, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Live Theatre Newcastle, New Vic Newcastle-under-Lyme, and York Theatre Royal with additional venues together with casting and administrators to be introduced shortly.
A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction is Headlong’s second main touring experiment, a part of the corporate’s ongoing dedication to rethink theatre-making in a local weather emergency. In 2020 Headlong produced Signal Fires, a nationwide competition that noticed over forty corporations come collectively for the primary time to tour a single thought, at a time when conventional touring was not attainable. Headlong have dedicated to staging one main touring experiment and one piece that explores a special side of local weather change, as a part of our dedication to rethinking what it means to be a touring theatre firm in the course of the local weather emergency.
Lydia West says: “I am thrilled to be collaborating with Katie Mitchell, Headlong and the Barbican on this very relevant piece. I think Barbican is the perfect venue for such an impactful show and I have been a huge admirer of Katie’s work for some time. I’m excited for everyone to see this and to bring this eco-feminist text to life in my professional stage debut.”
A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction is Co-produced by Headlong and the Barbican.
Presented by Headlong, Barbican, Belgrade Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Live Theatre Newcastle, New Vic, York Theatre Royal.