What's On

I’m hugely excited to be able to share our fantastic 2023 Roman Theatre Festival programme.

As usual, the centrepiece of our lineup will be OVO’s ever popular and critically acclaimed in house productions of classic plays and stories, and this year we are bringing you six new shows, along with one returning favourite.

To mark OVO’s 20th anniversary, we return to the very first show we produced back in 2003, Romeo and Juliet, given a 1990s Northern Irish twist by Stephanie Allison and Amy Connery, who will also revive last year’s audience favourite, Little Women.

I’m delighted to welcome Scott le Crass, fresh from his award winning production of Rose, starring Maureen Lipman, which transfers to the West End in May following sell-out runs at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester and The Park Theatre in London. He will mark his OVO directing debut with children’s classic The Railway Children, performed by our repertory company in tandem with a new production of Noel Coward’s brutal comedy Private Lives, which I will direct.

I’m also looking forward to directing a new immersive production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s riotous musical comedy The Threepenny Opera, with a stellar creative team that includes Lada Valesova (Royal Opera House) as Conductor and Musical Director and Julia Mintzer (Welsh National Opera) as Co-Director. This show will transfer to the Minack Theatre in Cornwall in September.

We are very pleased to be collaborating for the first time with two other leading outdoor producing companies on co-productions of a 1980s set Much Ado About Nothing with Creation Theatre from Oxford, and a post-apocalyptic update of Sherlock Holmes origin tale A Study in Scarlet, the memorably titled Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Lipstick, Ketchup and Blood with Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Just as in previous years, we will also be welcoming a wide range of visiting and community companies to our beautiful theatre, presenting everything from Shakespeare to children’s classics, Sondheim musicals to great operatic arias.

Last year our newly launched season ticket, offering unlimited access to all the events in the festival, was a great success so it’s back again this year, representing even better value, with up to 80% or more than £400 worth of savings on offer.

We’re really looking forward to welcoming you back to the Roman Theatre for another unforgettable summer. This really does promise to be our most diverse and dynamic season yet. See you soon!