NTW 2O19

Creative Conversation

National Theatre Wales
Sunday 3 March 2019
Cardiff

The season will kick-off with an open event. National Theatre Wales invites everyone invested in theatre in Wales to take part in a big, creative conversation about its future, and NTW’s role in that future.

As NTW approaches its tenth year, we’re in robust and thoughtful conversation with artists who care deeply about their nation’s theatre. Join us on Sunday 3 March 2019, in Cardiff, as we take the opportunity to widen that conversation and throw open the doors.

What is your dream for theatre in Wales in the next decade? What do artists and audiences need now and in the coming years? How can we all play our part? This will be a free and open event with a warm welcome to all.

Storm.3: Together and Alone

Part of the Storm Cycle
National Theatre Wales
Created by Mike Brookes

March 2019
Newport

In the third instalment of The Storm Cycle, theatre-maker Mike Brookes explores some of the assertions, emotions and questions that have bubbled away under Wales’ recent social and political unrest – and that seem to have been pushing us, as well as much of Europe and the US, towards arguments about who ‘we’ are, and how we assert and protect ‘ourselves’. It will be made and performed in the weeks before the UK’s planned withdrawal from the EU.

STORM.3: Together and Alone will feature text inspired by Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté, an extraordinary collection of essays written by Simone de Beauvoir amidst the desolation and optimism that followed the Second World War, at the birth of the Europe in which we now live.

Splish Splash

National Theatre Wales & Oily Cart
Written & Directed by Tim Webb

March 2019
On tour in special schools across Wales and England

Splish Splash is a multi-sensory, watery wonderland; a magical space where every sense is delighted, specially created for young people aged 3-19. There will be three versions: one for those with profound and multiple learning disabilities, another for those on the autism spectrum, and a third for the deafblind.

Hydro-therapy pools across Wales will once more be transformed by underwater lighting, clouds of bubbles drifting from below, curtains of perfumed spray, and live music played on floating pipes, with a sound that can be felt as much as heard.

Splish Splash was originally commissioned as part of National Theatre Wales’ NHS7 Festival in July 2018, when it toured schools and hospitals in Wales.

For further information, please click here

The Stick Maker Tales

National Theatre Wales
Written by Peter Cox
Directed by Kully Thiarai

April-May 2019
Touring Wales

Peter Cox’s one-man show, is a heart-warming and heart-breaking tribute to hill-farming communities across Wales and their strength, endurance and determination to survive, even when the odds against them seem impossible.

Shepherd Geth Roberts might be getting on in years, but he still lives alone, high in the Elan Valley. A born storyteller, he’s spent his whole life working his wild and windswept farm.

But now Geth faces his greatest challenge: his sight is failing and if he can’t see, then he can’t work the farm.

The Stick Maker Tales was originally commissioned as part of National Theatre Wales’ NHS70 Festival in July 2018, performed in Llandrindod Wells and Welshpool, Powys.

Cotton Fingers

National Theatre Wales
Written by Rachel Trezise
Directed by Julia Thomas

May-June 2019
Belfast & Derry, Northern Ireland
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
& Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Aoife is hungry and in need of something to do.
Cillian makes a mean cheese toastie.
As Aoife’s boredom and hunger are satisfied by half an hour in Cilian’s bed, her life changes forever.

As social and political upheaval grips the country she loves, can Aoife regain control over her future?

Written by award-winning writer Rachel Trezise at the time of the historic referendum of the 8th amendment in Ireland, Cotton Fingers takes us on journey from Belfast to Wales.

This bold coming of age story was originally commissioned as part of National Theatre Wales’ NHS70 Festival in July 2018, performed in Aberaeron, Ceredigion, and Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.

Radio Play (Untitled)

A new production by artist Sean Edwards, in partnership with Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham for Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice 2019

May-November 2019
Venice Biennale, Italy

November 2019
Cardiff and Wrexham

This new work will be an experimental radio play, and will form a key element of Edwards’ solo presentation for Wales in Venice 2019, commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and led by Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham.

The play is a poetic enquiry into place, social history and class, intertwined with the artist’s own personal history. The script will be collaged from found text and real voices. The decision to draw on autobiography is driven by Edwards’ belief that you can create a greater connection with the audience through the inclusion of the most ‘honest version’ of yourself.

Through the work, Edwards intends to capture and translate a condition of ‘not expecting much’ – a phrase he uses to evoke a way of living recognisable for a huge proportion of the population in Wales – a way of making do and getting by.

Further details will be announced in 2019.

On Bear Ridge

National Theatre Wales & the Royal Court Theatre
Written by Ed Thomas


September-October 2019

Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

followed by further dates at the Royal Court Theatre, London

Ed Thomas, one of Wales’ leading playwrights and co-creator of hit television series Hinterland/Y Gwyll, returns to the stage with this brand new play.

“We’d offer you our whiskey, but we drank it all yesterday”

Winter on Bear Ridge
A ramshackle homestead selling meat, selling petrol
Nobody comes and no-one knows why
No-one knows anything
The village below is silent

Shotguns point at the low-flying fighter jets that
scream across the night sky
But no-one knows whose side they’re on

As the snow falls, those left behind wait…

The play will form part of a trilogy of deeply personal work. In addition to the trilogy, NTW is working with the Royal Court on a series of ongoing opportunities for writers in Wales around the production of On Bear Ridge. More details on these, and the trilogy, will be announced in the new year.

Further information, including how to book your tickets, will be announced in March 2019

Peggy's Song

National Theatre Wales
September – October 2019
Touring south Wales

Written by Katherine Chandler
Directed by Phil Clark

Katherine Chandler’s touchingly funny monologue explores an unexpected friendship between hapless hospital radio DJ Danny Walkman and tough talking patient Peggy.

After his radio show at St Bevan’s Hospital, Danny has a chance encounter in the Garden of Hope with Peggy. They’ve nothing in common, but in Danny’s world everyone likes music, don’t they?

Everyone’s got a song, and if there’s one thing Danny Walkman is good at, it’s getting people to tell him what their song is. Peggy doesn’t give much away, so it’s a race against time for Danny to find, and play, Peggy’s song.

Peggy’s Song was originally commissioned as part of National Theatre Wales’ NHS70 Festival in July 2018, when it was performed in Wrexham.

Further information, including how to book your tickets, will be announced in 2019

Mission Control

Hijinx & National Theatre Wales 
Directed by Kully Thiarai & Ben Pettitt-Wade,
and created with Seiriol Davies & Tim Rhys-Evans

November 2019
Cardiff

Half a century after the first moon landing, Mission Control explores the dark side of the moon.

Performed by a cast including professional neurodivergent and learning-disabled actors and featuring members of the Only Boys Aloud choirs, this immersive spectacle will re-create the atmosphere of fear, paranoia and optimism that led to two great powers believing they had to be the first to land a man on the moon.

A brand new production examining the nature of truth, propaganda, espionage, manipulation and the necessity and redemptive power of myths.

Further information will be released in early 2019