OTT Season (23-24)

Germinating In the Greenhouse

2023-24 Season

Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond until August 2024

Preview by Steve Mackrell

A greenhouse is, of course, a place where oranges grow!  Amongst the offerings at Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre this summer will be its inaugural Greenhouse Festival at the end of August.  This is a new initiative, a showcase which will provide an opportunity for graduating LAMDA students to display their talents in productions such as Ionesco’s The Chairs and Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal. 

Another fresh initiative this coming season will be the expansion of the Orange Tree’s educational outreach, nurturing new talent: a greenhouse, not a hothouse. 

The OT’s youth theatre will include workshops and performances of Twelfth Night for ages 10+ (February 2024) and Hamlet for ages 7 to 12 (June 2024).  Its school’s initiative, supporting the GCSE curriculum, will be Shakespeare Close-Up (Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet) for ages 11 to 16.  Leading this outreach is the Orange Tree’s Community Director Francesca Ellis, who is well established as a Shakespearean actress and director.

Tom Littler, who is in his first year as the Orange Tree Theatre’s new Artistic Director, emphasises the importance of the Orange Tree’s intimate space, which has an ability to open up the very heart of these classics.  This season he was very much hands-on, directing the current season’s “clever, nuanced” production of Somerset Maugham’s play,The Circle.

Announcing their programme for 2023-24 , Littler, together with Development and Communications Director Alex Jones, outlined the theatre’s new season, which promises to combine contemporary drama with respected classics.  The stressed the caveat that the old classics will be treated with the respect and care they deserve: in other words, it will be a journey of re-discovery. 

Included in these classics will be Uncle Vanya to be directed by the celebrated Sir Trevor Nunn (March and April 2024), Noel Coward’s last play Suite in Three Keys (May and July 2024), and Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, which will be directed by Tom Littler and Francesca Ellis (November 2023). 

Other eye-catching productions in the coming season include an intriguing Christmas offering, Tiny Tim’s Christmas Carol, where it’s up to Tiny Tim to remind his father Bob Cratchit of the story of Scrooge and the true meaning of Christmas.  Another fascinating re-imagining will be an adaptation of Jane Austin’s novel Northanger Abbey (January and February 2024). 

As for contemporary writing the season includes Test Match (April and May 2024) about tensions in the Lord’s locker room during the women’s cricket world cup and Red Speedo (July and August 2024) an American thriller to be directed by Matthew Dunster, who was previously Associate Director at the Young Vic and at Shakespeare’s Globe, and who has directed a number of award winning Martin McDonagh plays in the West End.

In the offing is a creative and well-balanced season which combines the best of both past and present and promises to serve up some challenging theatre to future audiences.

It is amazing what is germinating in the Orange Tree’s greenhouse.

Steve Mackrell, July 2023

Photography courtesy of OTT