One new theatre, three experts, three playwrights and you
As the Bush prepares to open the doors of our new home in Autumn this year, we’re asking you to test drive the space and be a part of its transformation from library to theatre.
Over the course of one evening, you’ll see three short plays by three brilliant Bush playwrights performed in three different layouts. Each play will be inspired by nine curious props chosen by the National Theatre and a set of challenging stage directions created by Alan Ayckbourn, Michael Grandage and Bush Artistic Director Josie Rourke.
As the stage transforms and the seats move around, we’ll ask you to feedback your views from the stalls – and to put to test other areas of the building from the backstage to the bar.
Track the progress of Where’s My Seat on our blog here
Part of the Bush’s 32 Degrees West Season – the angle from the front door of our old home of 39 years to our new home at 7 Uxbridge Road
Alan Ayckbourn was born in London in 1939 to a violinist father and a mother who was a writer. He left school at 17 with two ‘A’ levels and went straight in to the theatre. Two years in regional theatre as an actor and stage manager led in 1959 to the writing of his first play The Square Cat for Scarborough’s Theatre in the Round at the instigation of his then employer and subsequent mentor, Stephen Joseph. Some 75 plays later, his work has been translated into over 35 languages, is performed on stage and television throughout the world and has won countless awards.
Major successes include Relatively Speaking, How the Other Half Loves, Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce, A Chorus of Disapproval and The Norman Conquests. The National Theatre recently revived his 1980 play Season’s Greetings to great acclaim while Lucy Bailey’s production of Snake in the Grass at the Print Room also attracted excellent reviews. At the Stephen Joseph this summer, he will direct the premiere of his latest play, Neighbourhood Watch, together with Dear Uncle, his adaptation of Uncle Vanya. In 2009, he retired as Artistic Director of this theatre, where almost all his plays have been and continue to be first staged. Holding the post for 37 years, he feels his greatest achievement was the establishment of this company’s first permanent home when the multi-venue complex fashioned from a former Odeon Cinema opened in 1996.
In recent months, he has been inducted into American Theatre’s Hall of Fame, received the 2010 Critics’ Circle Award for Services to the Arts and became the first British playwright to receive both Olivier and Tony Special Lifetime Achievement Awards. He was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre.
Deirdre is Artistic Director of Tall Tales Theatre Co. and playwright. Writing for theatre includes: Bogboy (Tall Tales& Solstice Arts Centre at Solstice and Project Arts Centre); Moment (Tall Tales & Solstice, Solstice, Project Arts Centre, Bush Theatre and national Irish Tour); Salad Day (The Abbey Theatre); Hue & Cry (Bewleys Café Theatre & Tall Tales, Glasgow, Romania, Bulgaria, Paris and New York); Melody (Tall Tales, Glasgow, national tour); Attaboy Mr Synge (The Civic Theatre national Tour); Rum & Raisin (Tall Tales & Nogin Theatre Co. national tour); Summer Fruits (Tall Tales, national tour); Knocknashee (Tall Tales & The Civic Theatre, national tour); Passage (Tall Tales, The Civic Theatre); Bé Carna (Tall Tales, national tour and Edinburgh Fringe Festiva).
For children; Maisy Daly’s Rainbow(Tall Tales & Solstice); Rebecca’s Robin (Bewleys Café Theatre); Show Child (Livin Dred); The Tale of the Blue Eyed Cat (Livin Dred).
Radio includes: Bogboy.
Deirdre is currently writing a new play for the Abbey theatre and has two plays in development.
Emma has been an Associate Artist of the Bush Theatre and her credits here include Three Birds, Where’s My Seat, Like A Fishbone, The Whiskey Taster, If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, 2nd May 1997, Apologia, The Contingency Plan, Wrecks, Broken Space Season, 2000 Feet Away, My Romantic History and Tinderbox.
Theatre credits include Great Expectations (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Elizabeth (Royal Opera House), The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe (Birmingham Rep), The Oresteia (Home Theatre, Manchester), Wuthering Heights, The Merchant Of Venice, Consensual (NYT), The Effect (Sheffield Theatres), Henry The Fifth (Unicorn Theatre, Imaginate Festival), All My Sons (Talawa Theatre, UK Tour), Hello/Goodbye, The Blackest Black, #aiww: The Arrest Of Ai Wei Wei, Lay Down Your Cross, Blue Heart Afternoon (Hampstead Theatre), Each His Own Wilderness, Widower’s House (Orange Tree Theatre), Accolade (St James Theatre), Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (Royal Exchange, Royal And Derngate And Northern Stage), Pitcairn (Out of Joint, Chichester Festival Theatre & UK Tour), Saints (Nuffield), The Colby Sisters Of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Tricycle Theatre), Pests (Clean Break, Royal Exchange & Royal Court), Carthage (Finborough Theatre, Coriolanus, Berenice, The Physicists, Making Noise Quietly, The Recruiting Officer (Donmar Warehouse), All My Sons, A Doll’s House, Three Birds, The Accrington Pals, Lady Windermere’s Fan (Royal Exchange), Much Ado About Nothing (Old Vic), Nut (National Theatre), OMG! (Sadlers Wells, The Place & Company Of Angels), There Are Mountains (Clean Break, HMP Askham Grange), The Promise (Donmar Warehouse at Trafalgar Studios), You Can Still Make A Killing (Southwark Playhouse), The Sacred Flame (English Touring Theatre), Black T-Shirt Collection (Fuel UK Tour and National Theatre), Invisible (Transport UK Tour & Luxemborg), Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndhams Theatre, West End), Precious Little Talent (Trafalgar Studios), Charged (Clean Break, Soho Theatre), Men Should Weep (National Theatre), Travels With My Aunt (Northampton Theatre Royal), Sisters (Sheffield Theatres), Pornography (Birmingham Rep/Traverse and Tricycle Theatre), Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (National Theatre), Europe (Dundee Rep, Barbican Pit).
Emma is the Associate Sound Designer for the National Theatre’s production of War Horse. She won the Falstaff Award for Best Sound Design/Original Score for her work on Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse in 2014.
Jack Thorne’s plays include Bunny (Nabokov), 2nd May 1997 (Bush Theatre Nabokov), Burying Your Brother in the Pavement (National Theatre Connections), Two Cigarettes (Bush Theatre), Stacy (Tron, Arcola Theatre and Trafalgar Studios), Fanny and Faggot (Pleasance Edinburgh, Finborough and Trafalgar Studios), When You Cure Me (Bush Theatre), Paperhouse (Flight 5065) and Solids (Paines Plough/Wild Lunch at the Young Vic). TV includes This Is England 86 (with Shane Meadows), The Fades, Cast-Offs (with Tony Roche and Alex Bulmer), and episodes of Skins and Shameless. Films include The Scouting Book for Boys, which premiered at the 2010 London Film Festival, for which he won the Best British Newcomer Award. Radio includes People Snogging in Public Places (Winner of Best Drama at the Sony Radio Academy Awards 2010), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Winner of the Radio Award at Ability Media International Awards 2009), Left at the Angel and When You Cure Me.
Lighting designer
Josie is the Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre.
Josie trained with directors Peter Gill, Michael Grandage, Nicholas Hytner, Phyllida Lloyd and Sam Mendes. Before coming to the Bush she worked for five years as a freelance director and was the Associate Director of Sheffield Theatres and Trainee Associate Director at the Royal Court.
At the Royal Court she directed CRAZYBLACKMUTHFUCKIN'SELF by Deobia Oparei and LOYAL WOMEN by Gary Mitchell. At Sheffield, she directed WORLD MUSIC and THE UNTHINKABLE by Steve Waters; MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, THE LONG AND THE SHORT AND THE TALL by Willis Hall and KICK FOR TOUCH by Peter Gill. She was the tour director of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES by Eve Ensler. At the Young Vic, she directed MY DAD'S A BIRDMAN by David Almond. For the Royal Shakespeare Company she directed BELIEVE WHAT YOU WILL and KING JOHN (RSC Complete Works). She has directed the 24HOUR PLAYS at The Old Vic Theatre and in New York. For the Donmar Warehouse Josie has directed FRAME 312 by Keith Reddin, WORLD MUSIC by Steve Waters and THE CRYPTOGRAM by David Mamet. For The Bush, Josie has directed HOW TO CURSE by Ian McHugh, TINDERBOX by Lucy Kirkwood, APOLOGIA by Alexi Kaye Campbell, 2,000 FEET AWAY and LIKE A FISHBONE by Anthony Weigh. Recent work outside the Bush includes TWELFTH NIGHT and THE TAMING OF THE SHREW for Chicago Shakespeare Company and MEN SHOULD WEEP at the National Theatre. Forthcoming work includes MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at the Wyndham’s Theatre.
Lucy has previously designed Wrecks, Broken Space Festival, 2,000 Feet Away, Tinderbox and The dYsFUnCKshOnalZ for the Bush Theatre (with whom she is a former Associate Artist).
Recent theatre credits include Twelfth Night for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; Dreams of Violence (Out of Joint); Shades for the Royal Court’s Young Writers Festival; Macbeth (Edinburgh Lyceum/Nottingham Playhouse); Nina and Gas Station Angel (repertoire, LAMDA); Timing (Kings Head) and When Romeo Met Juliet (BBC)
She designed Artefacts (Nabakov Theatre Company / Bush Theatre) and Some Kind of Bliss (Trafalgar Studios), both of which transferred to the 2008 ‘Brits off Broadway Festival’ in New York and other theatre credits include Be My Baby (New Vic Theatre); Rope (Watermill Theatre); Closer (Theatre Royal Northampton); The Long and the Short and The Tall (Sheffield Lyceum); The Prayer Room (Birmingham Rep/Edinburgh Festival); Ship of Fools (set, Theatre 503); The Tempest (set, Box Clever National Tour); The Unthinkable (Sheffield Crucible Studio); Almost Blue (Riverside Studios, winner of Oxford Samuel Beckett Trust Award); Dr Faustus (The Place); Touch Wood (Stephen Joseph Theatre); Breaker Morant (Edinburgh Festival); Richard III (Cambridge Arts); Flight Without End, Lysistrata, Othello (LAMDA); Generation (Gate Theatre) and Season of Migration to the North (RSC New Writing Season).
Lucy graduated from Motley Theatre Design School in 2003, having also gained a BA in Fine Art from the University of Newcastle.
Michael Grandage is Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse. Previous work for the Donmar includes King Lear (Critics’ Circle Award for Best Director), Red (also Broadway – Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Director of a Play), The Chalk Garden (Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Director), Othello (Evening Standard Award for Best Director), John Gabriel Borkman, Don Juan in Soho, Frost/Nixon (also West End and Broadway), The Cut, The Wild Duck (Critics’ Circle Award for Best Director), Guys and Dolls (Donmar in the West End – Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production), Grand Hotel (Evening Standard Award for Best Director, Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production), Henry IV, After Miss Julie, Caligula (Olivier Award for Best Director) and The Vortex. As part of the Donmar in the West End season Grandage directed Ivanov- Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Director, Twelfth Night, Madame de Sade and Hamlet (also Kronborg Castle and Broadway). Other West End work includes Evita. He was the Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres 1999 – 2005, where his many productions included Don Carlos (Evening Standard Award for Best Director).
Tamara Harvey returns to the Bush to direct. Her previous credits for the company include Resillience as part of Steve Water’s The Contingency Plan and tHe dYsFUnCKshOnalZ!. In the West End, she has directed Plague Over England (also the original production at the Finborough), One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Co-Director) and Whipping It Up (Olivier Award nominee, Best New Comedy, from the original production at the Bush by Terry Johnson). Her other theatre work includes Dancing at Lughnasa (Birmingham Rep), Tell Me On A Sunday (UK tour), the premiere of Alistair McGowan’s Timing, Who’s The Daddy? (King’s Head Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe), Bedroom Farce (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Romeo and Juliet (Theatre of Memory at Middle Temple Hall), Rock (UK tour), Touch Wood, Purvis, Storm In A Tea Chest, The Prodigal Son (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), Closer (Royal Theatre, Northampton), One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (UK tour), Bash (Trafalgar Studios), An Hour And A Half Late (Theatre Royal Bath and UK tour), The Importance Of Being Earnest (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, USA), Sitting Pretty (Watford Palace), Markings (Southwark Playhouse/Traverse, Edinburgh), The Graduate (UK tour), Young Emma and Something Cloudy, Something Clear (Finborough), The Lion, The With And The Wardrobe (Maitisong, Botswana). Tamara spent much of 2010 directing the theatre plays that form an integral part of Roland Emmerich’s new film, Anonymous. She is a trustee of the Peggy Ramsay Foundation, a selector for the National Student Drama Festival and is a member of the 2011 panel for the George Devine Award for most Promising Playwright.
Francesca Annis makes her Bush Theatre debut. Her theatre credits includes Time and Conways (National Theatre), Afterplay (Sydney Festival), Under the Blue Sky (Duke of York’s), The Glass Menagerie (Gate Theatre, Dublin), Epitaph for George Dillon (Comedy Theatre), Henry IV and The Vortex (Donmar Warehouse), Blood (Royal Court), Hedda Gabler (Chichester Festival Theatre and West End) and Hamlet (Almeida and New York). Her television work includes Little House, Cranford, Jane Eyre, Jericho, Copenhagen, Deceit, Wives and Daughters and Reckless; and for film, Shifty, Revolver, The Libertine, Milk, The Debt Collector, Dune, Krull, Macbeth, The Eyes of Annie Jones, Saturday Night Out and Cleopatra.
Debbie Chazen’s recent theatre credits include Calendar Girls (West End and tour), The Girlfriend Experience (Royal Court, Plymouth and Young Vic), Cinderella (Old Vic), The Cherry Orchard (Sheffield Crucible), Dick Whittington (Barbican) and A Prayer for Owen Meaney and Mother Clapp’s Molly House (National Theatre). For television, her work includes White Van Man, Doctors, Psychoville, The Wall, TittyBangBang, Smoking Room, Mine all Mine, Nicholas Nickleby, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Killer Net, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Lakes; and for film, The Duel, Feeder, Beginner’s Luck and Topsy-Turvy.
Hugo Speer’s theatre credits include Year of the Rat (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Betrayal (West End) and Design for Living (Theatre Royal Bath). For television, his work includes Vera, Skins, Moving On, Five Days, Bleak House, Sons and Lovers, Messiah, Hearts and Bones, Forty, Boudica and Clocking Off; and for film, The Late Bloomers, The Interpreter, An Angel for May, Swing, The Full Monty and A Bhaji on the Beach.
Richard Cordery’s theatre credits include Love Story (Duchess Theatre), The Power of Yes (National Theatre), Spring Awakening (Novello Theatre), Waste (Almeida Theatre) and extensive work for the RSC, including, The Historys: Henry IV Part II, Richard II, Richard III, Henry VI Parts I, II & III; Twelfth Night and Hamlet. For television, his work includes, The Reckoning, Green Green Grass, Absolute Power, The Falklands Play and Unfinished Business; and for film, Glorious ’39 and Lorenzo’s Oil.
Nina Sosanya returns to the Bush Theatre where she appeared in Apologia. Also for theatre, her credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Novello Threatre), Love's Labour's Lost, As You Like It, The Learned Ladies, The White Devil (RSC); Herbal Bed, Henry V (RSC tour); The Happy Haven (RSC Fringe); Fix Up, House and Garden, Antony and
Cleopatra (National Theatre); Almost Nothing (Royal Court); The Vortex (Donmar Warehouse); The Marriage of Figaro (Royal Exchange, Manchester); The Nativity (Young Vic); Dead Meat (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Tempest (Holders Festival, Barbados); Educating Rita (Solent People's Theatre); Othello (Barons Court Theatre); Dinner Dance (KOSH national and international tours); Hair (Broadway Musical Company European tour); Twelfth Night, A
Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest (national and international tours and Oddsocks Theatre Co.).
TV includes: Framed, FM, Cape Wrath, Reichenbach Falls, The Wide Sargasso Sea, Sorted, Doctor Who, Much Ado About Nothing, Casanova, Nathan Barley, The Good Citizen, No Angels, The Debt, Teachers, Serious and Organised, The Jury, People Like Us, Urban Gothic, Doctors, Jonathan Creek, Prime Suspect, The Bill, Hercules and the Amazon Woman.
Film includes: Manderlay, Code 46, Love Actually.
Hugh Skinner returns to the Bush Theatre, where he previously appeared in 2 May 1997 and Suddenlossofdignity.com. His other theatre work includes The Great Game (Tricycle Theatre), Angry Young Man (Trafalgar Studios), The Enchantment (National Theatre), Senora Carrar’s Rifles (Young Vic), and ); French Without Tears (Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford). Television credits include Any Human Heart, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Bonkers; and for film, Day of the Dead.
