CLYBOURNE PARK by BRUCE NORRIS
Director: Kirstie Davis
Casting: Danièle Sanderson
THURSDAY 9 - SATURDAY 11 OCTOBER 2025
The Crescent Theatre, Ron Barber Studio
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
In 1959 Lorraine Hansberry became the first black woman to have a successful and award-winning play on Broadway. Her extraordinary masterpiece: A Raisin in the Sun is the inspiration for this play as Clybourne Park takes place an hour after we leave the Younger Family in that play with Karl Lindner, who is on a mission to stop them moving into his predominantly white community.
What follows is a satirical and pointed look at how the American housing crisis mirrors changes in society and is ever-changing. Act 2 jumps ahead another 50 years to the same house, but this time a white family are wanting to move in and re-build the house and start again. In both instances arguments rage and tensions build as the secrets of the house are discovered and racial resentments are bought to the fore.
This has been a brilliant challenge for the cast to take on. It is a technical play full of provocation and fire and yet darkly funny and full of pathos. We have enjoyed exploring both eras and looking at America now and what the imaginary Clybourne Park might look like in 2025. As one of the characters says in Act 2: “The history of America is the history of private property”. Enjoy the ride.
Kirstie
Davis, September 2025
KIRSTIE DAVIS
Kirstie has been a theatre director for over 30 years. For six years she was the Associate Director and then Acting Artistic Director of Watford Palace Theatre where she directed acclaimed productions of Top Girls, The Daughterin-law and The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
She was CEO and Artistic Director of Forest Forge from 2009 to 2016 where she commissioned and directed 20 new plays, which included: Free Folk by Gary Owen, the first adaptations of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Stardust by Russ Tunney and Woman of Flowers by Kaite O’Reilly.
Recent projects include: The Rise and Fall of Vinnie and Paul by Neil Bastian at The Glitch, Waterloo; The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary by John Nicholson at the Southwark Playhouse; The Bear Who Went to War by Alan Pollock at The Albany, Coventry; Robin Hood and Alice in Wonderland by Andrew Pollard at The Dukes Theatre, Lancaster; Kiss me Quickstep by Amanda Whittington at Queens Theatre, Hornchurch; Daddy Long Legs by Paul Gordon and John Caird and The Girl on the Train by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel at The Barn Theatre, Ladies That Bus and the sequel Ladies That Dig by Joyce Branagh, both of which went on national tours and a revival of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, and Tom’s Midnight Garden by David Wood at The Minack Theatre.
This is her eighth production for Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
