Our Spring 2022 season includes VAULT Rehomed shows, Sprint Festival 2022, uplifting political musical headline, Tess Seddon's Say Yes to Tess, headlining the season, Calm Down, Dear call-out for submissions AND a shiny new website.
A musical about ADHD, a filthy restoration drama, and an interactive performance about zero hours contracts are just three of the more than thirty shows coming to CPT as part of our much-loved Sprint Festival. The festival gives a much-needed platform for emerging artists at a time when the after effects of the pandemic are still limiting the opportunities available for early-career artists. We also celebrate the return of feminist festival Calm Down Dear, curated by Figs in Wigs, and Spring season highlights bringing real-life stories to the stage including Say Yes To Tess (5th – 16th April) and Adam Lenson’s But What If You Die? (10th – 14th May) supported by Starting Blocks.
Taking the lessons learnt from two years of adaptation and innovation, we are looking ahead to a jam-packed season of extraordinary and experimental work in our recently developed venue. With returning festivals including the much-loved Calm Down Dear festival and Sprint Festival, both regular calendar fixtures for fringe artists across London, as well as longer runs throughout Spring, we continue to champion artists and support their futures.
Sprint Festival once again provides a platform for innovative new work with one-off performances with highlights including Sweet Beef’s I Hate it Here (11th March) which tackles zero-hour contract and work instability through interactive performance, Chronic Insanity’s interactive Secure. Contain. Protect (16th March) and Yos Theatre’s Pink (20th March) which explores the relationship between English and Welsh identities. Elsewhere, Dirty Corset (12th March) is a vulgar, daft and beautiful piece of new work that encapsulates the essence of the sometimes forgotten Restoration period in all of its disgusting glory.
Gestures of Care (15th March) puts two friends alongside each other – one 'able-bodied' and one 'disabled' – to question assumptions and challenge understanding of what it looks and feels like to live in a body that juxtaposes the space and pace of the surrounding world. Meanwhile, ADHD The Musical: Can I have your Attention please? (17th March) blends facts, storytelling and some cracking original show tunes with the wacky and wonderful world of neuroscience, Julie Andrews, Cher and Dolly Parton.
Highlights across the Spring season include a two-week run of TheatreState’s new musical Say Yes to Tess (5th – 16th April), an uplifting true story of activism and Yorkshire grit. In association with Leeds Playhouse, Say Yes to Tess follows the story of Tess who stood for the General Election in 2017 for the Yorkshire Party. New, work-in-progress show No More Mr Nice Guy (17th – 19th May) by Cal-I Jonel, an exciting and emerging performer and creative artist, follows a British-Caribbean music teacher as he struggles to balance work and play, in association with Nouveau Riche and seed-commissioned by CPT. Adam Lenson, director of smash-hit live-stream Public Domain at Southwark Playhouse, will perform But What If You Die? (10th – 14th May) a solo musical about a cancer diagnosis, mortality and the lives un-lived. Directed by CPT regulars Sh!t Theatre, Freddie Hayes’ Potatohead (20th – 21st May) is an adaptation of Doctor Faustus and the Seven Deadly Sins involving puppetry, stand-up comedy, physical theatre, film, singing, dancing and plenty of potatoes.
Submissions are also currently open for Calm Down Dear festival which this year will welcome a guest curator for the first time. Bringing together female-identifying artists, performance group Figs in Wigs who performed at the inaugural festival in 2013 will curate a three-week celebration of radical feminist performance.
Following the sad cancellation of VAULT Festival earlier this year, CPT will also be rehoming numerous performances spanning drag, gig theatre, poetry and more. Shows include queer romantic comedy Love Is Just a Thing With Feelings (1st-3rd March) written using AI, improvised comedy with the return of The Wunderkammer (3rd – 5th March) and Liberty Martin’s Stag King (4th March).
Meanwhile, our website has undergone a revamp, focusing on creating a more user-friendly experience with easy-to-navigate programme information, with increased accessibility through contrast features, audio player enabled and better promotion of show access features across the site.
Artistic director Brian Logan said, “It’s hard to know where to start when outlining everything that’s happening at CPT as we launch our stellar spring 2022 season. With the first ever guest curators of our feminism fest ‘Calm Down, Dear’, the extraordinary Figs in Wigs? With Tess Seddon’s musical meets memoir meets call-to-politicalaction, Say Yes to Tess, visiting over the Easter fortnight? With the launch of our gorgeous and accessible new website? It’s an exciting time to be at CPT, and we promise excitement to our audiences and communities too, as we embark on another season of surprising, adventurous and inclusive theatre and performance, tearing up Hampstead Road from now until summer. Join us!”
