Northern Stage in Newcastle will be celebrating its big 50th birthday next year and is planning a packed bag of treats to mark the occasion.
The city favourite has unwrapped details of its spring season which will launch 2020 in style and set the mark for how it means to go on.
Among the highlights of the programme are bold productions made in Newcastle as well as showcases for local talent, in keeping with the theatre's reputation for featuring new work and supporting young people.
And there are new shows too by some of the UK's most adventurous touring companies around plus a wealth of children's shows, dance, poetry and comedy.
The show to kick off the spring season for the start of Northern Stage’ s half-century anniversary year is to be a new version of The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff, named after a young man who had begged on the streets of Stockton in the Great Depression and joined the hunger march to London in 1934.
What he endured in the run-up to serving in the Second World Wart is being retold in a multi-media show by Teesside folk trio The Young’uns and directed by Lorne Campbell.
Lorne, also artistic director of the theatre, said: "This is the perfect show to encapsulate Northern Stage as the first show of our 50th anniversary: local in its context, global in its ambition, accessible in its form, innovative in its style - just like the North East.”
The wide range of productions to follow include the premiere of Shandyland, a theatre co-production about "life, love, death and drink" at the heart of a small northern family-run pub which spans 20 years.
Another new play is Here which stars professional refugee actors and tells of characters from Albania, Angola, Kurdistan/Syria and Glasgow who end up living in Byker.
A one-night-only show with Lost Voice Guy, Lee Ridley, is among the comedy options while one of those for children is Moon Song, aimed at youngster on the autistic spectrum.
There's work by Northern Stage Young Company plus shows about "queer discovery" and gender identity while visiting productions include The Strange Tale of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel; Hotel Paradiso, which combines circus skills of clowning and juggling with comedy and theatre, and The Talented Mr Ripley: Patricia Highsmith’s psychological thriller which was adapted into the hit 1999 film with Matt Damon and Jude Law.
And among the stories waiting to be discovered is that of JM Barrie's Quality Street which is a farce written years before the author's famous tale of Peter Pan and which gave its name to the chocolate brand.
A rare revival of the story features a commentary from the Quality Street factory workers whose own stories of hapless romance and growing old disgracefully add a playful Yorkshire twist to the show.
Tickets for the new season, following the opening of priority booking, will go on general sale to the public on October 14. To book call the box office on 0191 230 5151 or see here where the theatre's spring programme also can be seen in full.
