“This year we’re making a Promise to 2021 because the world has changed and so have we.
If anything, 2020 has taught us there are no definites but that there is always hope. We are artists, we are activists and 2021 is about discovering how best we can reconnect and serve our national communities after the year we have all been through.
Our Promise to 2021 is a promise of hope. A hope to make some plays, a hope to make them with some people and a hope to share them with our national audiences.
In 2021, we promise to share the stories that should have been shared in 2020 as they are powerful, vital and need to be celebrated, along with new voices and a whole heap more.
We recognise that the world in which we will deliver these plays is now radically different. Our communities will lay at the heart of what we deliver with bespoke spin-off projects that respond to the present moment.
We will always put artists and audience’s safety first. We will only make and share work where it is safe to do so.
And finally, we will make some heart-stopping, feet-stomping, hair-raising, amazing shows. It’s been a while. Let us at it.
Hope to see you there.”
REASONS YOU SHOULD(N’T) LOVE ME by Amy Trigg
For a long time I didn’t know how it’d work.
Or what I’d be able to feel.
People would ask me if I could have sex and I’d feign shock and act wildly offended whilst secretly wanting to grab them by the shoulders and be like “I don’t know, Janet!”
Juno was born with spina bifida and is now clumsily navigating her twenties amidst street healers, love, loneliness – and the feeling of being an unfinished project.
Winner of The Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2020, Amy Trigg’s remarkable debut play REASONS YOU SHOULD(N’T) LOVE ME is a hilarious, heart-warming tale about how shit our wonderful lives can be.
REASONS YOU SHOULDN’T LOVE ME is directed by our Joint Artistic Director Charlotte Bennett, and will premiere at the Kiln Theatre 21 May – 12 June. Tickets are onsale now and you can buy them right here.*
*In the event of cancellation, full refunds will be issued.
A Women’s Prize for Playwriting, Paines Plough, 45North and Kiln Theatre production.
THE ELECTRIC by Vickie Donoghue
The Electric nightclub is a sanctuary for Sasha. It is where she feels closest to her father. But its reputation is now one of faded glamour.
When everything the club has ever stood for is threatened, Sasha knows she must act. For her Dad’s memory to live on, Sasha must take her revenge – in the most violent and bloody way possible.
The Electric is a contemporary re-telling of Electra by Sophocles, set in an Essex nightclub. It is a story about grief, greed and growing up.
THE ELECTRIC will be performed by Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama students and shared digitally from 21 May. Tickets are £6.50 and go on sale on 16 April.
Roundabout 2021 is in co-production with Belgrade Theatre Coventry and is part of Coventry City of Culture 2021. We’ll be announcing the full tour soon!
The four plays that will be performed in rep this year are:
BLACK LOVE by Chinonyerem Odimba, with music by Ben and Max Ringham.
Introducing Roundabout’s first ever musical.
Love freely. Love freedom. Love.
Meet Aurora and Orion: Sister and Brother. Constellations in time. More than blood. More than just fam.
They look after each other in their small London flat, filled with the memories of their parents’ Black Love.
When that love is threatened, they have to find their way back to each other and to what it means to love whilst Black. Using real-life stories, imagined worlds and new songs inspired by an R&B heritage, they begin a journey to confronting their own worst fears.
BLACK LOVE is an explosion of form-busting storytelling, an ode to Black music, and those real stories we rarely hear.
Co-directed by our Joint Artistic Director Katie Posner and Chinonyerem Odimba and in association with tiata fahodzi.
“I’d watch you eat. I’d eat you up. You’re not like them, are you? You’re real.”
Lori is a professional chef. Bex waits tables to make ends meet. One night together in a walk-in fridge and the rest is history.
Lori has big plans, but Bex is struggling. If we are what we eat, then Bex is in real trouble. It’s not her fault though – the system is rigged. No-one on minimum wage and zero hours has the headspace to make their own yoghurt.
HUNGRY is a new play about food, love, class and grief in a world where there’s little left to savour.
Directed by our Joint Artistic Director Katie Posner.
A coming-of-age story about a young woman from Coventry on a quest to find her place in her city and in the world.
Directed by Balisha Karra, Co-Artistic Director at Belgrade Theatre, Coventry.
REALLY BIG AND REALLY LOUD by Phoebe Eclair-Powell
This is a story. Charli’s story.
It’s about losing your voice and going on a big adventure to find it again. It features a rageful rhino, a very helpful fly called Stephen and some really good songs about chips.
A show for all the family from award-winning playwright Phoebe Eclair-Powell.
Directed by our Joint Artistic Director Katie Posner
SESSIONS by Ifeyinwa Frederick
“30 just matters, init. Like there’s no doubt you’re a proper adult then. Like 25 to 29 is just training but 30, it’s real.”
Tunde’s 30th birthday is fast approaching. So, he’s just started therapy because he hasn’t been able to get to the gym for weeks and a recent one-night stand ended in tears – his.
Interrogating the challenge of opening up and accepting our own vulnerabilities, SESSIONS by Ifeyinwa Frederick is a raw, funny, bittersweet deep-dive into the complexities of masculinity, depression and therapy.
Tour dates coming soon.
Directed by Philip Morris
A Paines Plough and Soho Theatre production
The Women’s Prize for Playwriting is back! Submissions open on 07 April.
And that’s 2021.
Thank you to our brilliant season launch creative team:
- Design by Thread Design
- Photography by Rebecca Need-Menear
- Video by DMLK Video
Let us know what you think using the hashtag #PP2021.
Hope to See You There!
