IMPROVESARIOS

An evening of improvised opera

LOFT STUDIO

14 February 7.30 p.m.

“Absolutely brilliant show. Bravo. Laughed my socks off!” -

Audience Member

Following two sell-out performances in the Loft Studio over the last two years, the Improvesarios are back for an evening of fun and mayhem as they put down their scores and put their creative prowess to the test.

Using your suggestions, this group of classically trained musicians improvise a brand new opera completely on the spot! Help them make beautiful musical moments or laugh along as they try to hold it all together. Their fate is in your hands...

Hot off their award winning season, the Improvesarios return will bring you more wild and wacky musical exploits. With previous adventures including prison breaks, lost love in the hotel business and even the sacking of Rome, no scenario is too outlandish or too mundane for this group to turn into an opera.

DOUBT: A Parable

By

John Patrick Shanley

Director: Chris Gilbey-Smith 

MAIN HOUSE

25 February – 7 March, 2026

“Like all good parables, its story feels both timeless and more timely than ever, its ideological arguments speaking to our world of social media silos and ‘Punch and Judy’ political debates.”

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian 



John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable, originally premiered on Broadway in 2005 and was awarded a Pulitzer prize and several Tony awards, including Best Play. Shanley went on to adapt this stage play for a 2008 film version starring Meryl Streep, which earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay and nominations for all of the cast of four.

This taut, unsettling drama is set in a convent in the parish of St Nicholas in New York’s Bronx, against the backdrop of the mid-60s, in the midst of political and social change.

A modernising priest’s conduct comes under question by the Principal of this Catholic School. As the actions and motivations of each are scrutinized and suspicion mounts, the two are drawn into a battle of wills that threatens irrevocable consequences for everyone involved.

This challenging, provocative drama, by this much garlanded playwright, is both impeccably written and compellingly topical. Unmissable.

Originally produced on Broadway

By Carole Shorenstein Hays, MTC Productions, Roger Berlind, and Scott Rudin on March 31, 2005.

Originally produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club on November 23, 2004.”

Age guidance 14+. Mature themes.

References to child sexual abuse

FROZEN

By Bryony Lavery

Main House

1 – 11 APRIL

Director: Dave Crossfield

“What is striking is that Lavery’s play is both radical in form and progressive in content….and theatrically riveting……It increases our understanding, which is Lavery’s ultimate intention.”

Michael Billington, The Guardian

Rhona, a 10 year old girl, walks out of her parents’ house en route to her grandmother and never arrives. Her mother, Nancy, retreats into a state of frozen hope.

Over subsequent years three characters come to terms with this in very different ways; her mother, her killer and the criminal psychologist who studies the case. The play questions the appetite for retribution.

The structure of the play makes for compelling viewing as we move from monologue to dialogue.

Hailed by the Independent as one of the 40 greatest plays of all time, after a premiere at the Birmingham Rep in 1998, where it won Best Play, Frozen made its debut at the National Theatre in 2002, moving to Broadway and securing four Tony nominations.

It was most recently revived in the West End in 2018 with Suranne Jones.

This amateur production of “Frozen” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd.

PONTYPOOL

By Tony Burgess

Director: Hannah Brown

LOFT STUDIO

21-25 April 2026

“…all kinds of superfluous things appear related to each other. That means something’s going to happen. Something big. Something is always about to happen.”

Shut in his church basement studio, washed-up shock jock Grant Mazzy has been exiled to local radio in remote Pontypool, Ontario. His confrontational style isn’t going over well with his producer, Sydney. She’d prefer that Grant stopped trying to antagonise his listeners and started reading the local news. Mrs French’s cat, Honey, is missing. Schools are closed due to the snow. 

Up in the snowy town above, reports come in of a disturbance at the local doctor’s office, outbreaks of violence, and babbling crowds roaming the town. 

It’s a killer story - if it’s real. Grant and his team try to navigate the escalating chaos and find themselves at the centre of a story they’re still struggling to make sense of.

Words have always been Grant’s weapons, and now it seems he’s in the fight of his life. Or for his life. 

Content Warning: Violence, moderate gore, mature themes.

Age guidance 16+

No readmission after play commences. 

The stage adaptation Pontypool by Tony Burgess was first produced by

Strawdog Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois, from October 13 to

November 4, 2012.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

By Mike Barlett

Director: Lynda Lewis

MAIN HOUSE

6 – 16 May, 2026

“By following the fortunes of a particular couple from the late 1960s to the present, Bartlett offers an indictment of a generation… exhilaratingly combining the domestic and the epic. His play is rivetingly watchable.” Michael Billington, The Guardian

Are baby boomers to blame for the fact that their children's generation is debt-ridden and adrift? Love, Love, Love takes on the baby boomer generation as it retires, and finds it full of trouble. Does each generation unwittingly disappoint the next?

It's 1967. Kenneth and Sandra know the world is changing and they want some of it. Smoking, drinking, affectionate and paranoid, they journey forty years from initial burst to full bloom.

The pair meet, get married, have children, divorce and settle into retirement over the course of the play. We follow their trajectory in three acts that take place in 1967, 1990 and 2011, each capturing a specific moment in family life and British politics.

Their children, on the other hand, bitterly rail against their parents' irresponsibility and their relaxed, laissez-faire attitude.

An Olivier award winning playwright, Mike Bartlett's play Love, Love, Love premiered in a touring production in 2010 with a new production by the Royal Court Theatre in 2012 and has had revivals in London and Broadway.

A non-professional production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books

SUMMER AND SMOKE

by

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

DIRECTOR: SUE MOORE

MAIN HOUSE

10 – 20 JUNE, 2026

“So rarely seen, this play by Tennessee Williams feels like a major discovery…..by the end it had me totally in its grip.”

Michael Billington, The Guardian

An intoxicating love story follows Alma, a young puritanical woman from a small town, whose undeclared love for an unpuritanical young neighbouring doctor, John, has driven her into a state of neurosis.

Alma is a singing teacher and the daughter of a minister. She has long been in love with John, the son of a doctor, who has recently returned to his family home following his medical studies. In the oppressive heat of summer, Alma meets John again and her life is turned upside down as she finds herself trapped between desire and the fear of it.

Can these two reconcile their differences, deal with their demons, their different views of the world and find a way to be together?

Written before and after Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams cited Alma as his finest creation. It had a triumphant revival at the Almeida and a West End transfer in 2018 – sold out in both venues and hailed as a masterpiece.

This amateur production of “Summer and Smoke” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd.

ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS

By Richard Bean

Based on The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni

With songs by Grant Olding

Main House

Director: Craig Shelton

"One of the funniest productions in the National's history."

Michael Billington review 2011

“A hilarious combination of clockwork-clever plot and controlled chaos of the highest order”.Clare Brennan review 2024

The Guardian

One Man, Two Guvnors, Richard Bean’s smash-hit play, is one of the most acclaimed comedies of the 21 st century.

This celebrated English adaptation of the 1746 Carlo Goldini play The Servant of Two Masters exploded onto the National Theatre stage in 2011. A riotous farce, it has gathered multiple awards all over the world.

The plot almost defies description. Set in Brighton in 1963, One Man, Two Guvnors sees Francis Henshall sacked from his skiffle band and out of work. He can’t be kept down for too long and soon he has secured not one, but two dubious new ‘guvnors’. There’s just one problem… they mustn’t know about each other. With money to be made and a love interest to woo, Francis has got his hands full.

Juggling the work of a small-town gangster and a man on the run from the police, can he keep himself and his bosses out of trouble long enough to bank some cash and win the hand of the love of his life?

This amateur production of “One Man Two Guvnors” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk