If you are reading this, the chances are that you are already quite familiar with the Shaw recipe: familiar classics given fresh energy and delight, mixed with pieces you have never heard of and will never forget. This year is the same, only more so.
You may not have seen the musical Anything Goes, but I already know you are going to love it. That’s because you certainly do know many of the great Cole Porter songs it contains, including “I Get A Kick Out Of You”, “You’re The Top” and “It’s De-Lovely.” And because I know how much the Shaw audience loves tap dancing – and this is one of the great tap shows of all time. Don’t miss it.
The rest of the Festival Theatre season will be given over to exciting new spins on a family classic (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and a nail-biting thriller (Wait Until Dark). Meanwhile, the Royal George’s last season in its present form will offer an utterly hilarious farce (Tons of Money), a Shaw masterpiece (Major Barbara) and a spontaneous twist on the murder mystery: a whodunit solved by the audience in Murder-on-the-Lake.
If you are reading this, you are also, I would wager, the sort of person who takes a chance on the shows in the Studio. This year we again have two brilliant and moving pieces: Blues for an Alabama Sky (a classic drama set in 1930s Harlem), and Gnit, a funny and profound re-working of Peer Gynt by Will Eno, author of Middletown, our smash hit from 2017.
All this and – of course – a full menu of music and laughter in the Spiegeltent, which has become the favourite watering-hole of so many of you.
Thank you for being someone who loves live theatre, and who supports what we do by booking early and often. I hope you will make sure you see everything; I know how many of you tell me that it really does make a difference to see the whole picture.
Tim Carroll
Artistic Director
