FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 20 November 2018 PRESS RELEASE Royal & Derngate and English Touring Theatre announce that Nancy Medina, recipient of the 2018 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award, will premiere Two Trains Running by August Wilson IMAGES CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE Royal & Derngate Northampton in partnership with English Touring Theatre are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2018 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award, Nancy Medina, will premiere August Wilson s Pulitzer-Prize nominated, TONY and Lucille Lortel Award winning Two Trains Running in the Royal Theatre, Northampton next Autumn as the opening show of the venue s Made in Northampton Autumn season. The co-production costs will be supported by a grant from The Royal Theatrical Support Trust. The news was announced this weekend at an Awards ceremony at Shakespeare s Globe, where Medina was presented the Award by The Royal Theatrical Support Trust Chair Sir Geoffrey Cass and Sir Trevor Nunn CBE. The ceremony was attended by RTST Trustee Sir Ian McKellen CBE and a number of other leading names from British theatre. August Wilson s widow Constanza Romero, who is the executor of his estate, described Nancy as an exceptional artist who will direct this play with great respect for the material and a keen eye for how this play illuminates our lives today. Nancy Medina said I am thrilled to be directing August Wilson s Two Trains Running for Royal & Derngate and ETT. It is about time that Wilson s beautiful and poetic characters gain a wider audience across the UK. Nancy was selected from 70 candidates by a panel chaired by James Dacre (Artistic Director of Royal & Derngate) and comprising judges Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE (Artistic Director of the Young Vic); multi-tony and Olivier Award-winning director Sir Trevor Nunn CBE; Olivier Award-nominees Tanya Moodie and Samantha Bond; four-time Olivier Award-winner Paule Constable (Associate, National Theatre); and Richard Twyman (Artistic Director of English Touring Theatre). James Dacre and Richard Twyman said Nancy is a dynamic and accomplished director and we are thrilled to be working with her on the regional premiere of Two Trains Running. August Wilson s iconic play
speaks directly to many of the urgent questions we face in our society today, it is a privilege for Royal & Derngate and ETT to share such an inspiring and powerful piece of work with audiences around the UK. Set in Pittsburgh, 1969, and the regulars of Memphis Lee s restaurant are struggling to cope with the turbulence of a world that is changing rapidly around them. The diner is scheduled to be torn down, a casualty of the city s renovation project that is sweeping away the buildings of a community, but not its spirit. With compassion and humour, the master American playwright August Wilson paints a vivid portrait of everyday lives in the shadow of this defining moment in American history. When Two Trains Running premiered on Broadway in 1992, its production won TONY, Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel awards and was shortlisted for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Nancy Medina was the 2017 Genesis Future Director Award winner for the Young Vic. She is an acting tutor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and Course Leader for a post-16 Professional Acting Diploma at Boomsatsuma. Directing credits include: Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama), When They Go Low (NT Connections/Sherman Theatre), Yellowman (Young Vic), Curried Goat and Fish Fingers (Bristol Old Vic), Dogtag (Theatre West), Strawberry & Chocolate (Tobacco Factory Theatres), Dutchman (Tobacco Factory Theatres) and Persistence of Memory (Rondo Theatre). ENDS Media Contact Details Royal & Derngate Amanda Howson amanda.howson@namtrust.co.uk 01604 655719 ETT Freya Cowdry freya@katemorleypr.com 0207 299 4305 RTST Matt Harvey contact@rtst.org.uk 07595 248937
NOTES TO EDITORS About The Royal Theatrical Support Trust Patron: The Earl of Wessex Chair: Sir Geoffrey Cass Deputy Chair: Mark Hawes The RTST is a charity whose mission is to promote the public s knowledge, experience and appreciation of theatre and drama, and thereby play a part in securing the future of British theatre. The charity is supported by many of the leading names in British theatre. The RTST aims to fulfil its mission by diverse means, including: supporting new and established theatre companies, including regional companies; supporting up-and-coming theatre practitioners; promoting the works of major internationally renowned dramatists; and encouraging theatre-going. Support is provided in the form of grants and in other forms including the RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award, profile-raising through some of the leading names associated with the RTST and awareness-building through its developing promotional channels. Visit www.rtst.org.uk. The RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award promotes the RTST s charitable objects in two main ways: it supports up-and-coming talent in the theatre and it supports British regional theatres through grant support and publicity. The Scheme is intended to appeal to a diverse range of candidates and to play a part in promoting diversity in the theatre, onstage and offstage, and among audiences. The RTST ran the inaugural RTST Director Award in 2016 with Sheffield Theatres, with the winner Kate Hewitt directing the British regional premiere of Tribes by Nina Raine in 2017. The RTST ran the re-named 2017 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award with Nuffield Southampton Theatres (NST), resulting in the winner, Chelsea Walker, directing a bold contemporary version of Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire in a co-production between NST, Theatr Clwyd and English Touring Theatre. It opened on the main stage of NST City in Southampton in March 2018, as part of its inaugural season, and toured to seven other midscale regional theatres. The RTST is registered as a charity in England and Wales with registered number 254671. The RTST is a company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales with registered number 921909. Registered office: First Floor, 100 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0DH. About Royal & Derngate Patron: The Rt Hon Earl Spencer Chief Executive: Jo Gordon Artistic Director: James Dacre Royal & Derngate is the main venue for arts and entertainment in Northamptonshire, with audience members for live shows and films numbering 378,000 last year, and an additional 115,000 seeing its work on tour at over 85 venues. Named Regional Theatre of the Year in The Stage Awards in 2011 (and
nominated again in 2016), the theatre won the UK Theatre Awards for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre in 2015 and Best Touring Production in 2016 for The Herbal Bed, and The Stage Ensemble Award and a Fringe First for Education, Education, Education in 2017. Royal & Derngate s Made in Northampton productions are staged in its Royal auditorium, which opened as the Royal Theatre and Opera House in 1884 and was designed by the renowned Victorian theatre architect, C J Phipps. It is a Grade II listed building and has a capacity of 460 over stalls, dress circle and upper circle levels. Alongside touring nationally and internationally Royal & Derngate s Made in Northampton productions have transferred to the West End and Broadway as well as Shakespeare s Globe, the National Theatre, Hackney Empire and the Lyric Hammersmith. The venue also presents a diverse range of visiting productions on both the Derngate and Royal stages, featuring musicals, dance, comedy and music, including a residency from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Royal & Derngate s award-winning, nationally recognised Get Involved programme engages with over 21,000 participants each year, including schools, families and communities in Northamptonshire and beyond, and its two-screen cinema welcomed over 82,000 audience members to the best in world, independent, British and mainstream film. Meanwhile, the theatre s Generate artistic development programme supports hundreds of local and emerging artists and practitioners each year. Royal & Derngate also continues to work in partnership to manage The Core at Corby Cube. About English Touring Theatre English Touring Theatre is one of the UK s leading touring companies, winning the UK Theatre Awards Best Touring Production in 2014, 2015 and 2016. ETT works with exciting artists to stage an eclectic mix of new and classic work for audiences throughout the UK and internationally; theatre that is thrilling, popular and engaged in the contemporary world. At the heart of everything ETT does is the passionately held belief that everyone, wherever they are in the country, deserves to have access to world class theatre. In 2017 ETT toured to 40 venues throughout the UK, with productions including Sam Holcroft s Rules for Living, the Olivier Award winning Nell Gwynn, Richard Twyman s critically acclaimed production of Othello and the 20th anniversary tour of The Weir, which finished its nationwide tour this year, winning the Manchester Theatre Award for Best Visiting Production. 2018/19 sees the company celebrate its 25th anniversary, 2018 having begun with a critically acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire directed by the 2017 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award-winning Chelsea Walker. Othello is completing its 10 venue Autumn tour and ETT s critically acclaimed coproduction of Dealing with Clair by Martin Crimp, directed by Richard Twyman is on now at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. In 2019 ETT will produce a major revival of Equus by Peter Shaffer in a co-production with Theatre Royal Stratford East, directed by award winning director Ned Bennett. ETT will also be touring Iman Qureshi s
Papatango Award-winning The Funeral Director after its world premiere at the Southwark Playhouse this Autumn, as well as collaborating again with the Orange Tree Theatre on the world premiere of Cougar by Rose Lewenstein, directed by Chelsea Walker. www.ett.org.uk @ETTtweet