THEATRE ARENA

Working towards a greener festival and with help from London’s Arcola Theatre, this year the Theatre Arena at Latitude is to be entirely fuel cell powered. It will be an area positively buzzing with creativity and inspiration, hosting a wealth of bespoke productions and performances exclusive to the festival, some of the biggest names in contemporary, physical, classical, performance and local theatre are coming to the Suffolk coast.
The National Theatre will be bringing a play chosen from their New Connections project to Latitude Festival - an ambitious new writing programme for young actors creating theatre. Established 15 years ago in response to a widespread demand for challenging new plays for
young people to perform, the National Theatre New Connections commissions 10 new plays every year, penned by some of the hottest talent in world theatre. The plays are then brought to life through hundreds of productions, created by thousands of young actors, technicians, designers and directors, from across the UK, Ireland and further afield. This year’s writers are: Moira Buffini, Frantic Assembly & Bryony Lavery, Anna Furse & Little Angel, Abi Morgan, Mark Ravenhill, Peter Tabern, Jack Thorne, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Nigel Williams and Nicholas Wright.
Probably the most famous classical theatre company in the world, the Royal Shakespeare Company, brings to Latitude a selection of specially commissioned mini epic plays. These new works take the form of a series of 5 minute works of concentrated energy, passion and vibrancy. Each penned by a different writer, the writers, directors and actors will fearlessly wade in to investigate the wildest topics and areas of thought, each of the plays taking on a handful of essential classical themes including love - war –competitive insults – music – kings – queens – paupers – harlots – religious types – ruptured families – heartbreak – mistaken identities – journeys – shipwrecks – cross dressing – ghosts – fools. This new commission is an enlightening introduction to anyone who thought the RSC was only about preserving Shakespeare. Be prepared to be very surprised!

Walter Raleigh’s School Of Night was a clandestine and arcane underground sect of artists, thinkers, writers, scientists and spies, who some scholars believe wrote Shakespeare's plays.
Now, maverick genius Ken Campbell and his team revive the School of Night for the 21st century, improvising plays and poems from any period, always in pursuit of their first secret commission. The School of Night has been known to explore Elizabethan humours by performing them in modern styles, and examine great acting via master classes on gastromancy. Audience members may have impromptu sonnets created for them or be taught "the secrets of crowd scenes". The show mixes Ken’s unique and infamous surreal monologues with a team of highly skilled improvisers capable of playing in any theatrical style and keen to rise to any challenge.
The award-winning nationally and internationally renowned touring theatre company, Paines Plough and the new writing theatre company nabokov, present the brilliantly buzzy Crazy Love by Che Walker. A blast of fresh air, this 50 minute play is set at a wedding reception. The bride is Billie (Phoebe Whyte), a posh Notting Hill trustafarian about to marry one of her own. But with the help of her bridesmaids - Cordelia (Julia Sandiford) and Shiv (Suzie McGrath) - she recounts the period leading up to the wedding as a Bonnie-and-Clyde-style adventure with a man from the wrong side of the west London tracks. Paines Plough specialise exclusively in commissioning and developing contemporary playwrights and the production of their work on stage. nabokov is dedicated to commissioning, developing and producing backlash theatre - new work for the stage that offers an antagonistic response to contemporary agendas, trends and events.
The Operating Theatre Company, a network dedicated to the development of new writing for theatre, brings ‘I’m a Minger!’, to Latitude. Written and performed by Alex Jones, Jones plays his own 15-year old daughter, complete with pram-face and wig. ‘I’m a Minger!’ is a funny journey through the mind of a 15-year old girl – full of fizz, jokes and bittersweet rites-of-passage.
The Theatre Arena will host an enormous selection of stunning plays and shows from Royal Court Theatre, The Bush, Picks of the Pleasance plus so much more.