GATE THEATRE NOTTING HILL ARTISTIC DIRECTORS NATALIE ABRAHAMI AND CARRIE CRACKNELL ANNOUNCE FAREWELL SEASON
Gate Theatre joint Artistic Directors Natalie Abrahami and Carrie Cracknell today announced their final season for the company ahead of their departure from the Gate in January 2012.
“After four years running the Gate we are thrilled to announce our farewell season, which celebrates new talent, new writing and new interpretations of international classics that have been the signature of our tenure,” they said. “We are honoured to welcome back so many familiar collaborators on stage and behind the scenes and we hope that the repertoire continues to delight and surprise in equal measure.”
Chair of the Gate Board, Jonathan Hull said: “Over their four years at the Gate Theatre, Natalie and Carrie’s programme of new international writing, dance theatre and contemporary adaptations of classics has been a great success and has built on the Gate’s tradition of presenting bold, innovative, international theatre at our intimate venue in Notting Hill. The strength of their final season is a testament to their unique artistic vision. While we are sad to say farewell to Natalie and Carrie, the Gate has a strong future ahead of it, particularly given the recent confirmation of Arts Council funding through to 2015, and we are excited to see the direction in which a new Artistic Director will take the company.”
Cracknell and Abrahami took over as the Gate’s first joint Artistic Directors in March 2007 and since then have garnered a reputation for creating bold reinterpretations of international classics, and blending dance and text to bring dance theatre to the Gate stage.
Between 2007 and 2012 Cracknell and Abrahami will have presented more than thirty productions, including 18 world premieres. Under their joint tenure the company has been nominated for a South Bank Award and received the 2008 Peter Brook Empty Space Award. In 2009 Carrie and Natalie received the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Foundation Breakthrough Fund for creative entrepreneurs to implement their Gate Elsewhere initiative.
Abrahami and Cracknell leave the Gate to pursue freelance work in Britain and abroad. They leave a legacy of a robust and internationally acclaimed theatre for the new incoming Artistic Director – this position will be advertised shortly.
SEASON JUNE – DECEMBER 2011
The 2011-12 season epitomises the Gate’s commitment to producing radical, rebellious new theatre, with three original adaptations of international classics and the European premiere of an award-winning American comedy.
Cracknell leads the company’s farewell season with Sophocles’ ELECTRA, in a new version by award-winning playwright Nick Payne due to open to press on Wednesday 13 April.
In June, Australian writer/director Anna Ledwich returns to the Gate to direct her own adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s novella DREAM STORY following her 2010 sell-out Lulu.
Summer sees the European premiere of American comedy WITTENBERG, directed by Christopher Haydon and in Autumn, the theatre opens its doors to Dance Umbrella with two important pieces of dance theatre, THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE and LOGOBI 05.
The season culminates in November when Abrahami teams up with acclaimed writer Anthony Weigh for a new adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s YERMA, in a co-production with Hull Truck.
Click here to view more details on Carrie and Natalie's farewell season.
For press information and reviewing tickets please contact Clióna Roberts on 020 7704 6224 / 07754 756504 or e-mail cliona@crpr.co.uk