Hampstead Theatre 2024

[bordeaux]

www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/nov/23/sarah-siddons-actor-april-de-angelis-play-hampstead-theatre

Some interesting things coming up at the Hampstead.  April de Angelis has a play on about Sarah Siddons.  Michael Longhurst will be directing Stephen Adly Guirgis' Pulitzer prize winner, Between Riverside and Crazy, there's a new Christopher Hampton play called Visit from an Unknown Woman and Richard Nelson's An Actor Convalescing in Devon, a world premiere.  

[bordeaux]

www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/main-stage/

More details on the theatre's homepage. A pretty impressive line-up in my opinion. Between Riverside and Crazy won both the Pulitzer and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, amongst other prizes.

[Mark]

Between Riverside and Crazy is a wonderful play. Glad it will have a U.K. production.

[jr]

I have been waiting for Between Riverside and Crazy for years! The other 2 plays on the main stage look good too.

[cavocado]

That looks like an interesting season. I'm quite surprised they are continuing in much the same vein as when they had their subsidy. I'd thought the current season's Stoppard revival and the Richard Bean play - new writing, but more lightweight than their usual output - might signal future plans for the main house. While I'd be happy to see them include revivals, it's a strong line-up and I'll probably see most of these.

[bordeaux]

I'm assuming the Christopher Hampton is an adaptation of the wonderful novella, Letter from an Unknown Women, which he has transformed into a Visit. It's a lovely old 40s Hollywood weepie too directed by Max Ophuls with Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan. I'm always a little sceptical about adaptations of novels, unless (or even when) they've been adapted by a theatre auteur like Simon McBurney or Ivo van Hove. But Hampton has written some superb plays - including of course the best novel adaptation of them all, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Tales from Hollywood is one of my favourite plays of all time.

Richard Nelson had quite a bit of success in the late 80s, early 90s with plays like Some Americans Abroad (early SRB performance), Two Shakespearian Actors and Misha's Party, all at the RSC. Then he seemed to disappear but in the past few years I've read raves of one or two of his recent big family plays in two or three parts, but they've never been put on close enough to me or for long enough for me to get to. Has anyone seen any of his recent work?

[alessia]

I have never heard of Between Riverside and Crazy but booked because of the comments here. Sounds great!

[parsley1]

I wonder if the April De Angelis play will be as amazing as her last effort this time last year at The Dorfman….

[zahidf]

Sounds like 2022/2023 was a disaster for Hampstead

[zahidf]

[Rory]

Have to say that, when I read that article, I felt very sorry for the creatives who were named.

[c4ndyc4ne]

Jan 17, 2024 20:27:42 GMT Rory said:

Have to say that, when I read that article, I felt very sorry for the creatives who were named.

Absolutely awful for them to “name and shame”. Any new writing venue should stand by its programming choices - it is meant to be a space for new writing to be platformed without fear of being besmirched.

[parsley1]

Perhaps it will act as deterrent from playwrights writing rubbish

And presenting it to be staged

There should be some accountability

At the end of the day its a business

Sink or swim

Hampstead main stage had some of the worst plays on in the whole UK for the entirety of last year

The box office flops were deserved

The AD is also to blame her programming is all over the place

Really she isn’t fit for that job

[parsley1]

Is it correct Hampstead has no AD in post at the moment

[Jan]

Jan 17, 2024 20:47:41 GMT c4ndyc4ne said:

Jan 17, 2024 20:27:42 GMT Rory said:

Have to say that, when I read that article, I felt very sorry for the creatives who were named.

Absolutely awful for them to “name and shame”. Any new writing venue should stand by its programming choices - it is meant to be a space for new writing to be platformed without fear of being besmirched.

The annual report simply states facts, as it is required to do, as all registered charities are required to do to explain their finances.

Here’s an example. Is this untrue ? Do you want it to be omitted entirely from the annual report or covered up in some way ? Would the Charity Commissioners be OK with that ?

“The year started badly. The first production on the main stage, The Breach [by Naomi Wallace and directed by Sarah Frankcom], was a complete critical and commercial failure and had to be closed early having suffered more disappointing ticket sales than anything Hampstead had presented since 2012," she said”

[c4ndyc4ne]

Jan 17, 2024 22:08:13 GMT Jan said:

Jan 17, 2024 20:47:41 GMT c4ndyc4ne said:

Absolutely awful for them to “name and shame”. Any new writing venue should stand by its programming choices - it is meant to be a space for new writing to be platformed without fear of being besmirched.

The annual report simply states facts, as it is required to do, as all registered charities are required to do to explain their finances.

Here’s an example. Is this untrue ? Do you want it to be omitted entirely from the annual report or covered up in some way ? Would the Charity Commissioners be OK with that ?

“The year started badly. The first production on the main stage, The Breach [by Naomi Wallace and directed by Sarah Frankcom], was a complete critical and commercial failure and had to be closed early having suffered more disappointing ticket sales than anything Hampstead had presented since 2012," she said”

They didn’t need to name playwrights or directors. They could say “our first production of the year” etc etc

[parsley1]

Jan 17, 2024 22:18:57 GMT c4ndyc4ne said:

Jan 17, 2024 22:08:13 GMT Jan said:

The annual report simply states facts, as it is required to do, as all registered charities are required to do to explain their finances.

Here’s an example. Is this untrue ? Do you want it to be omitted entirely from the annual report or covered up in some way ? Would the Charity Commissioners be OK with that ?

“The year started badly. The first production on the main stage, The Breach [by Naomi Wallace and directed by Sarah Frankcom], was a complete critical and commercial failure and had to be closed early having suffered more disappointing ticket sales than anything Hampstead had presented since 2012," she said”

They didn’t need to name playwrights or directors. They could say “our first production of the year” etc etc

I don’t believe in malice

But there is nothing wrong with being direct

It might not be a bad thing to err on the side of cautious

RC suffered the same appalling syndrome of dreadful play after dreadful play

Does someone need to tell Rory Mullarkey he ain’t very good?

Yes

I hope he doesn’t get programmed at a venue again

He has had his three strikes
These are adults choosing to write bad plays
They aren’t some sort of endangered species
Plenty of works can be revived instead of this ridiculous charitable approach to new writing

[oxfordsimon]

That would just be trying to hide something that would be perfectly easy to work out.

When the theatre company that I have worked with the most makes their annual return everything is broken down on a production by production basis.

This isn't about naming and shaming. It is about being transparent and acknowledging both successes and failures.

When annual report says that a given production made a loss and closed early, that isn't blaming the writer or the director. There are many reasons that plays fail. Stating the basic financial and practical facts is not shaming anyone.

Particularly when a series of performances are cut short due to poor sales. That isn't something you can hide.

[Dave B]

The full report is here if anyone wants to read it. Google cache link as it won't load on the Charity's Commission site for some reason.

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:89tPIHlmR7gJ:https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search%3Fp_p_id%3Duk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet%26p_p_lifecycle%3D2%26p_p_state%3Dmaximized%26p_p_mode%3Dview%26p_p_resource_id%3D%252Faccounts-resource%26p_p_cacheability%3DcacheLevelPage%26_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_objectiveId%3DA14293435%26_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_priv_r_p_mvcRenderCommandName%3D%252Faccounts-and-annual-returns%26_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_priv_r_p_organisationNumber%3D218506&hl=en&gl=uk

[oxfordsimon]

There is nothing wrong with the simple statements of facts in that report

There were clearly a whole series of failures that culminated an a woeful year.

37% attendance is appalling and represents collective failures of programming, budgeting, marketing and governance.

[Rory]

To be fair I think Gregg Ripley - Duggan's programming this season has been pretty good. Lots I want to see there.

[n1david]

Jan 17, 2024 22:18:57 GMT c4ndyc4ne said:

They didn’t need to name playwrights or directors.

To be fair they didn't. The names are in square brackets showing that it was an addition by The Stage when they quoted the report. If you look at the report itself, helpfully linked to by @daveb you'll see the names don't appear, although the production name does, possibly to remove ambiguity.

[Jon]

To me, it shows that Roxana Silbert wasn't the right choice for Hampstead and I think that even without the ACE funding withdrawal, her days were numbered.

[zahidf]

Jan 17, 2024 23:25:46 GMT n1david said:

Jan 17, 2024 22:18:57 GMT c4ndyc4ne said:

They didn’t need to name playwrights or directors.

To be fair they didn't. The names are in square brackets showing that it was an addition by The Stage when they quoted the report. If you look at the report itself, helpfully linked to by @daveb you'll see the names don't appear, although the production name does, possibly to remove ambiguity.

Feels unfair on the stages part then

Naomi Wallace is a young playwright who hasn't done a lot of stuff beforehand on a large scale

But the report on Royal court and Young vic seems more 'anonymous' in not specifying particular productions and creatives

[princeton]

I think that the Hampstead report is a pretty even-handed document. It's sets out facts clearly and doesn't seek to apportion blame to any individual writer or director but acknowledges that overall the year saw very few commercial or critical successes (and even those which were still didn't break even) and that this led to a complete breakdown of the business model. It then outlines the work they did to put a buffer in place whilst they planned a new season, and how they intend to fund their work going forward. It's actually quite unusual to see a report which is quite so frank about the problems it has faced.

The Royal Court and Young Vic are slightly less candid but still outline the highs and lows, thought the Royal Court one in particular is irritatingly full of corporate speak and jargon. All three reports include full lists of the productions, writers and directors from that year. The reports can be found by searching the companies house website.

The Stage report on the other hand is by and large a cut and paste job of the three reports, with sentences and paragraphs taken out of context, to tell the Stage's own narrative - though with very little actually editorial copy or comment included. Presumably largely in order to generate clickbait headlines. Sometimes they are direct quotes - sometimes paraphrased - and sometimes, as noted above, direct quotes but with square brackets where The Stage has added unnecessary detail, like the name of the playwright and director. It also seems to slightly screw up the chronology of what happened at Hampstead Obviously they are completely entitled write what they want - but it's little wonder that none of the theatres wanted to engage with The Stage for the piece.