KAFKA’S METAMORPHOSIS, A BOLD NEW FRANTIC ASSEMBLY PRODUCTION IN COLLABORATION WITH LEMN SISSAY OBE COMING TO THE LOWRY, SALFORD THIS NOVEMBER.
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Frantic Assembly’s electrifying new adaptation of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, a collaboration between BAFTA nominated poet, playwright and broadcaster Lemn Sissay OBE (author of bestselling book My Name Is Why and new poetry collection Let the Light Pour In) and Frantic Assembly’s Artistic Director Scott Graham (Othello, Lovesong, Beautiful Burnout) comes to The Lowry, Salford from 14th – 18th November 2023.
Following their acclaimed performances as Iago, Roderigo and Bianca in Frantic Assembly’s recent sell-out tour of Othello, Joe Layton (Young Wallander, Netflix; Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Marvel) plays the Chief Clerk/Lodger, Felipe Pacheco (The Responder, BBC; Brassic, Sky One) plays Gregor and Hannah Sinclair Robinson (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, UK and Ireland Tour; Rockets, Blue Lights, both National Theatre) plays Grete. They are joined by Troy Glasgow (The Wife of Willesden, Kiln Theatre/Boston/NYC; A Streetcar Named Desire, Young Vic/ St Ann’s Warehouse NYC) as Mr Samsa and Louise Mai Newberry (Romeo and Juliet, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre; All’s Well That Ends Well, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) who plays the role of Mrs Samsa.
Metamorphosis has been adapted by Lemn Sissay OBE, directed by Scott Graham, designed by Jon Bauser, composed by Stefan Janik, with lighting design by Simisola Majekodunmi, video design by Ian William Galloway, sound design by Helen Skiera, and costume design by Becky Gunstone, the associate director is David Gilbert and casting director is Will Burton CDG.
Kafka’s Metamorphosis is a powerful and vital depiction of humans struggling within a system that crushes them under its heel. Gregor Samsa finds himself transformed from breadwinner into burden in this absurd and tragic story. Frantic Assembly is renowned for its use of physicality and movement and Metamorphosis is an inherently visceral production about the limitations of the body and mind, imagination and aspiration.
Metamorphosis is at The Lowry, Salford from 14th – 18th November 2023. For more information and tickets visit www.thelowry.com.
ENDS
For more information, images, or to arrange interviews please contact Jennifer Dean on jennifer.dean@thelowry.com. Images can also be downloaded from www.flickr.com
NOTES TO EDITORS
LISTINGS
The Lowry, Salford
14 – 18 November
On sale now
Metamorphosis is a co-production with Theatre Royal Plymouth, Curve Leicester, MAST Mayflower Studios and Lyric Hammersmith Theatre.
Lemn Sissay’s new collection of poetry Let the Light Pour In will be published by Canongate on 21 September 2023. For the past decade, Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks each morning. Let the Light Pour In is a life-affirming and witty collection of the best of these poems fueled by resilience and defiant joy.
CREATIVE TEAM
Adapted by Lemn Sissay OBE
Director Scott Graham
Designer Jon Bausor
Lighting Designer Simisola Majekodunmi
Video Designer Ian William Galloway
Composer Stefan Janik
Sound Designer Helen Skiera
Costume Designer Becky Gunstone
Associate Director David Gilbert
Casting Director Will Burton CDG
BIOGRAPHIES
Lemn Sissay OBE (Adaptor)
Lemn Sissay OBE is a poet, broadcaster and author. Lemn won the RIMA award from the Commission for Racial Equality in 2005 for his one-man radio drama Something Dark. He has published extensive plays and radio dramas, including Lemn Sissay’s Origin Stories for the BBC, The Report at the Royal Court, a one-off show about the effects of a psychologist’s report as he was observed as a child and an adaptation of Benjamin Zephaniah’s Refugee Boy for West Yorkshire Playhouse. Lemn has made multiple award-winning documentaries, including Lemn Sissay: Memory of Me for BBC One’s Imagine strand, and Superkids: Breaking Away from Care for Channel 4. From 2007, he became the artist-in-residence at the Southbank Centre. Beyond this, his work has featured at the Royal Academy and the British Film Institute. In 2012, he was the official poet for the London Olympic Games. He was chancellor of the University of Manchester from 2015 – 2022 and his poems are permanent installations across the city and in London at locations including Royal Festival Hall and Olympic Park. In 2015 he featured on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. Lemn became a trustee of the Foundling Museum in 2017, and in 2019 he was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize. In that same year, he published his memoir My Name is Why to great critical acclaim. In 2022, Lemn took park in television programmes such as BBC’s Live Lessons, curated poems for BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Season and Team GB’s 10th Anniversary, and wrote and presented his own podcast series with the British Library called All About Sound.
Scott Graham (Director)
Scott is Artistic Director of Frantic Assembly, co-founding the company in 1994. He has received nominations for his work on Beautiful Burnout (Drama Desk Award, New York), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Olivier, Tony and Fred Astaire Awards). With Steven Hoggett he won the TMA Award (now UK Theatre Awards) for Best Direction for Othello. He has provided movement direction for shows at the Donmar Warehouse, Royal National Theatre, National Theatre Wales and Singapore Rep. He has developed and written extensively about The Frantic Method. His recent directing credits with Frantic Assembly include Othello, TOUCH, I Think We Are Alone, Sometimes Thinking, Fatherland, Things I Know To Be. With Steven Hoggett, he has written The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre (Routledge). Scott is passionate about creating opportunities for people who might see theatre as a challenge or alienating, and believes that these new voices and fresh perspectives are vital to the health of the arts.
Troy Glasgow (Mr Samsa)
Theatre credits include: The Wife of Willesden (Kiln Theatre/Boston/NYC), DNA/Babygirl/The Miracle, Harper Regan (National Theatre); There’s Only One Wayne Matthews (Crucible Theatre); A Streetcar Named Desire (Young Vic Theatre/St Ann’s Warehouse NYC); Fatal Attraction (UK Tour). Film/Television credits include: The Bill, Holby City, Doctor Who, Skins, The Day of the Triffids, Adulthood, London’s Burning, MI High, Mr Harvey Lights a Candle, Shoot the Messenger, Piggy, World War Z.
Joe Layton (Chief Clerk/Lodger)
Theatre credits include: Othello, The Unreturning, The Fear: Ignition (Frantic Assembly); Partial Nudity (Fandango Productions); A Level Playing Field (Jermyn Street Theatre); Sam Wanamaker Festival (The Globe); Animal Farm (West Yorkshire Playhouse). Television and Films credits include: Young Wallander, Liberte: A Time to Spy, The Trouble With Maggie Cole, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, A Moving Image, Thirteen, Casualty, Father Brown, New Worlds.
Louise Mai Newberry (Mrs Samsa)
Theatre credits include: The Good Person of Szechwan (Lyric Hammersmith Theatre); The Climbers (Theatre by the Lake); The Smeds & The Smoos (U.K. Tour); Romeo and Juliet (Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park); Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory); Plenty (Chichester Festival Theatre); All’s Well That Ends Well (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) Lampedusa (Citizen’s Theatre); Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Pericles (Factory Theatre); Evelyn’s Roots, Adventures in Wonderland, Twelfth Night (Teatro Vivo); The Sugar-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie (Arcola Theatre); Any Means Necessary (Nottingham Playhouse); The Snow Dragon (U.K. Tour / U.S. Tour); The Gruffalo (U.K. Tour / Ireland Tour); The Long Life and Great Good Fortune of John Clare (Eastern Angles Centre); Dim Sum Nights, Wave, Boom (Yellow Earth Theatre, U.K. Tours); Pick-Ups, The Sacred Nymphs of Natterjack (Bush Theatre); Not The End Of The World (Bristol Old Vic); Transmissions (Birmingham Rep); The Good Woman of Szechwan (Leicester Haymarket); Noah’s Ark (Walk The Plank); Hecuba (Theatro Technis); King Lear (Orange Tree Theatre); The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Royal Shakespeare Company).
Television credits include: Doctors, Doctor Who (BBC One); Blacklist (NBC); Goal! (BBC Worldwide); The Bill (ITV); Dream Machines (SyFy); Future Makers (Discovery Channel); Clifford’s Puppy Days (PBS Kids).
Radio credits include: Inspector Chen, The Good Listener (Radio Four).
Film credits include: Go Back Home, The Shape of Things, Screentime, My One and Only, Fluid, Christie, Foreplay, The God Game, Fracking Regent’s Park, Put It On the Map, Tsuppari, La Jalousie.
Felipe Pacheco (Gregor)
Felipe is a Brazilian-British actor and movement artist who grew up in the North-West. He first trained at Columbia College Chicago and then the University of Surrey (GSA), graduating in 2019. Most recent screen credits include Patterns (Amazon Prime 2023), Brassic S4 (Sky One 2022), and The Responder (BBC One 2021), as well as music videos for The Chemical Brothers (2022), Emeli Sandé (2021) and Rojaz (2020).
Recent stage credits include Pistol in Henry V Schools Tour (Donmar Warehouse 2023), Roderigo in Othello (Frantic Assembly 2022/23) and the lead in Peter Pan (Alban Arena 2021).
Felipe has been a practitioner for Frantic Assembly since 2019, engaging and exploring the Frantic Method with performing arts students nationally and internationally. He is also a co-founder and Artistic Director of physical theatre company Buried Thunder and was part of New Adventures’ Overture cohort 2020/21.
Hannah Sinclair Robinson (Grete)
Hannah Sinclair Robinson is a London based actor and trained at East 15 Acting School and Bath Spa University. Her work in theatre includes: Bianca in Othello on the 2022 UK Tour for Frantic Assembly, Mrs Shears/Mrs Gascoyne in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time on the 2021/22 UK & Ireland Tour for NTP; Rockets and Blue Light sat the National Theatre; Helena in A Midsummer Nights Dream for Shakespeare in the Squares, Mandela in Water, Bread and Salt for Tangle International, Annette in Timothy at Vault Festival for Joyous Guard and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare in the Squares.TV includes Doctors, Eastenders, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Killer Cops. Films include Urban Decay.
Frantic Assembly
Award winning theatre company Frantic Assembly’s method of devising theatre has been impacting theatrical practice and unlocking the creative potential of future theatremakers for nearly 30 years. One of the most exciting theatre companies in the UK, Frantic Assembly is led by Artistic Director and co-founder Scott Graham and Executive Director Kerry Whelan. It has toured extensively across Great Britain and worked in more than 40 countries internationally, collaborating with some of today’s most inspiring artists.
Frantic Assembly is currently studied as a leading contemporary theatre practitioner on five British and international academic syllabuses. The success of the company’s distinct approach has influenced contemporary theatre-making and foregrounded the use of movement directors and choreographers in new dramatic works. With a history of commissioning writers such as Simon Stephens, Abi Morgan, Bryony Lavery, Anna Jordan and Mark Ravenhill, the company has been acclaimed for its collaborative approach.
Frantic Assembly’s flagship initiative Ignition, a free nationwide talent development programme for young people aged 16-24, seeks out under-represented talent and provides opportunities for young people to discover what is possible, increasing involvement in and access to the arts in places of low cultural engagement. Frantic Assembly productions include Othello (UK Tour), I Think We Are Alone (UK Tour), The Unreturning (UK Tour), Fatherland (Manchester International Festival 2017 and Lyric Hammersmith Theatre 2018), Things I Know To Be True (UK and Australia), Beautiful Burnout (UK, Australia, New Zealand and New York), Lovesong (UK and Australia) and The Believers. They are also the Movement Directors on the awardwinning National Theatre of Great Britain, production The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (West End, Broadway, UK & International Tours). Television credits include Movement Direction on BAFTA winning British – American series Humans (AMC, Channel 4 & Kudos).
Frantic Assembly is supported by the Arts Council England www.franticassembly.co.uk.