NDT co-curate Brits Off Broadway 2020

18 February 2020

We have partnered with 59E59 in New York to co-curate their long running festival Brits Off Broadway.

Brits Off Broadway has been running at 59E59 since 2004 and has been described by the New York Times as "a highlight of the theatrical year in New York". Our previous productions Down & Out in Paris and London, and Secret Life of Humans sold out at Brits Off Broadway with 2020 our first year as co-curators. The festival takes place at the Drama Desk Award-winning Midtown theatre from Tuesday 14 April to Sunday 28 June.

The 2020 programme is a perfect sample of the UK’s vibrant theatre scene featuring celebrated work by eight of the country’s most exciting and inventive companies - including many from the wider NDT family.

Our production of The Incident Room will open in New York (23 Apr - 24 May). Olivia Hirst and David Byrne's play tells the true story of the police hunt for one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers, The Yorkshire Ripper. The turbulent investigation is said to have been the birth of modern policing, changing the relationship between the forces and society forever.

★★★★ "The ingenuity of this piece is that it gives you a pacey, clock-ticking sense of what things were like." The Telegraph

In The Habit of Art, The Original Theatre Company revives the work of one of Britain’s greatest and most celebrated playwrights, Alan Bennett. Exploring friendship, rivalry and heartache this multi layered masterpiece recounts the meeting of poet WH Auden and composer Benjamin Britten (29 May - 28 Jun).

★★★★★ “The result is a take on life, sexuality, death and everything, that is witty, moving, laugh-aloud funny and understatedly profound… the cast uniformly stunning.” The Observer

It’s True It’s True It’s True by Breach Theatre is the Untapped, Scotsman Fringe First and The Stage Award-winning story of the court trial surrounding the rape of artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Acclaimed as one of the definitive artistic responses to the #MeToo revolution and acknowledged to have helped revive Artemisia’s position as a feminist icon, this production incorporates the original transcript of the 1612 trial to show how little has changed for victims of misogyny and sexual abuse in 400 years. The play was televised by the BBC in February 2020 and will run at the world-famous Barbican Centre before transferring to New York (6-31 May).

★★★★★ “It might be set in 17th-century Italy, but the consistently exciting Breach Theatre’s new show feels uneasily current.” Financial Times

Dinomania by Kandinsky tells the true story of the ‘dinosaur hunters’ of the 19th century, particularly Gideon Mantell, an amateur whose attempts to gain recognition from the scientific establishment led him to be a pawn in the battle between the creationist beliefs of the ultra-conservative old order, and the scientific progressivism of the ‘evolutionists’. The play portrays a collision between politics, religion, social class, and science which has fundamentally changed our understanding of the world and life itself (3-28 June).

★★★★★ "Wildly inventive theatre company Kandinsky return with a head-spinningly smart show about Victorian fossil hunters... No-one else makes theatre quite like this." Time Out

A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad) by Silent Uproar is a Scotsman Fringe First and Musical Theatre Review Award-winning cabaret-musical about living with depression. Written by Olivier-nominated playwright and writer on Netflix’s The Crown, Jon Brittain, with music and lyrics by acclaimed musician and performer Matthew Floyd Jones, the story spans a decade in the life of protagonist Sally. Charting her journey through depression but A Super Happy Story shows through storytelling, music and humour that mental ill health is not a barrier to happiness (14 Apr - 3 May).

★★★★★ “You’ll be hard-pushed to find a better musical at this year’s Fringe” WhatsOnStage

Wild Swimming by FullRogue - visiting four historical periods, this mischievous and raucous show explores the rise of feminism and puts a microscope over the state of modern masculinity. Wild Swimming is a kaleidoscopic exploration of gender politics, artistic expression and cultural progress (14 Apr - 10 May).

★★★★ “Sarcastic barbs, a puckish spirit and big ideas all merrily co-exist here.” The Stage

Ladykiller by The Thelmas is a sharp and blackly comic monologue by a murderous hotel maid which was a sell-out success at Edinburgh Fringe 2018 (12 May - 7 Jun).

★★★★★ “Hannah McClean’s bright-eyed portrayal is chilling, charming and terrifyingly believable” The Skinny

Orlando by BoonDog Theatre takes us back to 1928 when Virginia Woolf imagined her own freedom through the character of her novel Orlando. Over 90 years later, Lucy Roslyn's play is the story of a person looking for escape, desperate to leave behind the identarian bullshit (9-28 Jun).

★★★★ “Captivating & magnetic” Fest

New Diorama Theatre Artistic Director David Byrne:

“At New Diorama, we’re always looking to unlock new opportunities for our artists. The chance to co-curate Brits Off-Broadway with 59E59’s brilliant Val Day, and transfer some of our best NDT supported work to New York, has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience – and I can’t wait to share some of the best new, contemporary British theatre with Off-Broadway audiences.”

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