St. Ann's Warehouse has unveiled highlights from its upcoming 40th anniversary season, a lineup that includes the Gate Theatre Dublin's production of Hamlet, starring Oscar nominee Ruth Negga and directed by Yaël Farber, and a return of Good Chance Theatre’s critically acclaimed and sold-out show, The Jungle, which transformed the Brooklyn theatre into the now-closed Calais Jungle refugee camp earlier this season.
The anniversary season will also feature Schaubühne Berlin’s History of Violence, adapted from Édouard Louis’ acclaimed autobiographical novel, and monologist Daniel Kitson’s latest work, Keep.
Read: HOW ST. ANN'S WAREHOUSE CREATES RADICAL AND RESPONSIVE THEATRE
Kicking off the new programming in the fall, St. Ann's will welcome the return of Schaubühne Berlin and director Thomas Ostermeier (Returning to Reims) with their production of History of Violence, adapted from Louis' memoir with filmmaker Florian Borchmeyer. The production, which is part of a series of events celebrating French writer Louis in collaboration with BAM, will mark the show's American premiere. Performances will be in German with English supertitles, November 13-December 1.
In December, St. Ann's will present Kitson's solo work Keep, described by the artist as a show “about how much past the present should contain. About rigor and generosity and the value of regret and the possibility of hope, and the delusion of starting again and the inevitable sadness of ever holding on to anything. About, in short, the stuff in my house and the thoughts in my head.”
Keep comes to St. Ann’s December 4-19, and follows Kitson's earlier productions: The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church (2011), It’s Always Right Now, Until It’s Later (2012), Analog.Ue (2013), and Mouse: The Persistence of an Unlikely Thought (2016).
In 2020, the Gate production of Hamlet, starring Loving's Negga in the title role, will begin a month-long run February 1. Director Farber returns to St. Ann's following her 2012 production of Mies Julie, with additional casting and a full creative team to be announced.
Hamlet will be presented in association with Kate Pakenham Productions (the former executive producer of the Donmar Warehouse who produced Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Shakespeare Trilogy).
In April and May 2020, St. Ann's will welcome back Good Chance Theatre’s The Jungle. The immersive show, seen in London's West End and in San Francisco, transports audiences to the French refugee camp known as the Jungle—where thousands of refugees from Africa and the Middle East built a society while they waited for their “good chance” passage to Britain.
The Jungle is written by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson and directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin. The work is performed by an international company of actors, many of whom come from refugee backgrounds, including some who lived in the Calais Jungle, and who now reside in the U.K.
“Someone asked me what comes after the 40th, and I said the 41st!" says St. Ann's Artistic Director Susan Feldman. "We just have one interest: to keep finding and presenting work that aspires to change the world. Presenting artists Ruth Negga, Yael Farber, Thomas Ostermeier, Edouard Louis, Daniel Kitson, and the company of The Jungle exemplify that aspiration.”
Learn more at stannswarehouse.org/.
