The Ambassador Theatre Group: Press: Press Releases
Press Releases
Issued : 17 January 2007
London’s most innovative theatre venue, Trafalgar Studios, has announced its brand new spring season, offering the best variety of fresh, dynamic and groundbreaking theatre in the West End.
Operated by Ambassador Theatre Group, Trafalgar Studios is attracting a new and wider audience to the West End by offering theatre that is uniquely entertaining and cutting-edge. It is also a gateway for diverse and new work that may not otherwise have the opportunity to play in central London.
Opening the new season at the 400-seat Trafalgar Studio 1 is Harold Pinter’s much-anticipated THE DUMB WAITER (2 February – 24 March). Marking its 50th anniversary with a major West End revival, this classic comedy of menace and suspense stars two outstanding performers, Lee Evans (The Producers, Mousehunt) and Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter, Black Hawk Down).
The intimate 100-seat Trafalgar Studio 2 launches its new season with PECCADILLO CIRCUS (Wednesday 14 February – Saturday 3 March). In this brilliant documentary comedy, Lizzie Roper reveals the fetishes and naughtiest secrets of real people in their own words, as she delves into the nation’s views on sex in this unmissable one-woman show.
Continuing its vision to support vibrant and pioneering work, Trafalgar Studio 2 welcomes the World Premiere of Fish Productions’ LOVELY AND MISFIT (Tuesday 6 – Saturday 31 March), bringing three “undiscovered” short plays by Tennessee Williams to the stage. In Williams's most provocative and openly gay play, And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens, Candy Delaney, a gay transvestite living in New Orleans, suffers “a damaged heart” after her lover deserts her, until she meets Karl, a rough merchant sailor… In Summer by the Lake, an introverted boy is desperate to escape his domineering mother and, in Mr Paradise, a reclusive poet receives a surprise visit from a fan on a mission. Strikingly autobiographical, these three plays explore the themes that established Williams as one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest playwrights.
Based on the brief life of John Merrick, a brand new production of Bernard Pomerance’s acclaimed THE ELEPHANT MAN (Wednesday 4 April – Saturday 5 May) is brought to the stage by Creative First. Abandoned as a child and shunned by society, the horribly deformed Merrick survives as a freak show attraction until a famous young doctor rescues him from his life on the streets, but his belief that he can become a man like any other is a dream tragically never realised…
The World Premiere Production of the scorching new play, TERRE HAUTE (Wednesday 9 May – Saturday 2 June), comes to Trafalgar Studio 2 later in the spring, written by Edmund White, one of America's greatest living writers. A famous author comes face-to-face with America’s most notorious terrorist. One has a story to write, the other a story to tell. As the clock ticks on death row, the bond between the two men grows. Nabokov present this haunting imagination of Gore Vidal’s relationship with Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Moving, emotional, funny and life-affirming, TWO MEN TALKING (Tuesday 5 – Saturday 23 June) is a unique and powerful piece of theatre. Written and performed by Paul Browde and Murray Nossel, the pair talk with startling honesty about growing up white, middle class and privileged under apartheid in South Africa during the 1970s.
Finally, the dynamic and cutting-edge LATER season continues at Trafalgar Studio 2, produced by Paines Plough. This exciting and intimate night out features writers performing their own work and newly commissioned plays.
Trafalgar Studios booking information:
Box Office: 0870 060 6632
On-line: www.theambassadors.com/trafalgarstudios
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Notes for editors:
The £750k redevelopment of Trafalgar Studios began in May 2004 with the opening of the 400-seat Studio 1, with a sell-out run of the RSC’s Othello starring Anthony Sher. The intimate 100-seat Studio 2 was opened in November 2005, thanks to a generous donation by entrepreneur and patron of the arts, Christina Smith.
Ambassador Theatre Group is currently the largest theatre group in the West End and the second largest in the UK, with a total of 24 venues.
For more information, please contact John Chittenden, Group Press Officer ATG, on 020 8545 7919 or email johnchittenden@theambassadors.com