The Young Vic is renowned for staging exceptional theatre. Not only was it the home of The Inheritance which won four Olivier Awards, but it also welcomed Fun Home, The Convert and The Jungle to London. Now, we expect great things once again as Bronx Gothic is receiving its UK premiere at the Young Vic this June.
From MacArthur Genius fellow Okwui Okpokwasili comes this one-woman show. A beautiful mix of theatre, dance and visual installation, Bronx Gothic is a coming of age story about a girl in the Bronx on the cusp of a sexual awakening and a breath-taking exploration of girlhood.
Created in collaboration with Peter Born, it draws on inspiration from West African griot storytelling and the epistolary style of the Victorian novel to ask what it means to be a brown girl dreaming herself awake.
Kwame Kwei-Armah, Artistic Director of the Young Vic, said: “Okwui’s painful, beautiful, meaningful and heartfelt process is profoundly moving. The show cannot be described as just theatre. It cannot be described as just dance. When I first watched a documentary which captured the backstage story of this virtuosic one-woman show told by a MacArthur Genius Award winner, I knew I just had to programme it here at the Young Vic. Bronx Gothic not only plays with form; it plays with my heart. And it is ultimately a magnificent performance.”
Find out more about The Young Vic’s 2019 season, here.