2027 & BEYOND
WHO, AND INDEED WHAT, IS SPINNING PLATES CO?
The Mission:
Great texts, theatrically told.
The Work:
Is text-based and in service to the text and the playwright. For us, the words are important.
Is highly stylised. We build visually bold and theatrical worlds populated by performances that are both truthful and extreme. We present larger than life characters tackling real human problems.
Is ensemble driven and energetic. We curate our team, on and off stage, valuing collaboration and bringing together all elements of stagecraft in pursuit of “Total Theatre”.
Balances intellectual playfulness, horror and comedy.
Platforms classic story telling with edge.
Highlights the absurdity of the modern world in an accessible way.
Aims to disarm the audience. We invite them to laugh, then gasp, then gag…then think.
What sets Spinning Plates apart?
Although text-based, the execution of a Spinning Plates show offers a distinct reinterpretation of what can be gleaned from the source material. Each production delights in visual metaphors, dream-like worlds, and twisted characters.
Our productions trust their audience with the darker, more problematic parts of humanity. They have a distinctive artistic language—embracing gothic absurdity, humour and theatre of spectacle—to create heightened worlds that operate by their own logic. Every element, from design to performance, works together to create a cohesive, richly imagined experience. Our work never aims to be too abstract or academically alienating in its approach of political satire, but rather presents clean allegories of broader societal and moral questions through zany story-telling, allowing for a more accessible specificity.
NOW, ONTO THE PLAY PITCHES.
MEDEA
after Euripides. In a new adaptation by Spinning Plates.
A production of Medea is going on at the State Theatre Company. But when our leading lady discovers she has been cast as The Nurse, and a young, green actress who ticks other kinds of boxes has been cast as Medea…well, hell will have no fury like an actress scorned, and it may well be that the director who passed her over has entered into a production he will soon have cause to lament.
A play within a play, witness the classic tale of Medea unfold as life imitates art. Our reimagining of this Greek tragedy will take place both in its actual physical setting—the theatre at the Malthouse—and within the mythical world of Euripide’s classic. Our heroine will stop at nothing to regain the role that she was born to play. Blood will be shed. Theatre taboos given voice. Gods will appear (but it might just be the lighting designer up on a ladder).
Taking inspiration from theatrical ‘behind-the-scenes’ films such as Opening Night and Birdman, alongside haunting relationship breakdown nightmares like Possession and Midsommar and self-aggrandising existential journeys akin to All That Jazz, this production will blur fiction and reality to hair-raising effect.
Cast size: four—six.
Image references: Opening Night (1977), All That Jazz (1979), Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida & the Opera North orchestra (2019), Angels in America (2003).
ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST
by Dario Fo & Franca Rame. Adaptated by Tom Basden.
“Well, the initial inquiry is over, yes, but that wasn’t inquisitive enough, so now there’s an inquiry into that.”
A man is dead. A maniac investigates. A dismantling begins.
Spinning Plates will partner once more with Tom Basden, the playwright who brought his dazzling reimagining of Dostoevsky’s The Crocodile to our stages in 2023, to bring another essential 20th century classic to town in our signature style of opulent chaos. Based upon the real-life suspicious death of a civilian, this satire is abundant with chaotic role-play, disarming logic and a slow but sure unravelling of the system corruption that allows history to repeat itself.
Performance is as an act of resistance in this Kafkaesque farce and our rock n roll style of absurd theatre is the perfect fit.
Cast size: six.
Image references: Gecko Theatre Company’s Missing (2012), a photograph of Dario Fo (1969), Brazil (1985), Playtime (1967)
THE SUICIDE
after Nikolai Erdman. In a new adaptation by Spinning Plates.
"Your husband died a symbol...We'll pay for everything."
Poor Semyon has had it with life. He thought taking up the tuba would give him a new joie de vivre, but that failed, too.
After a misunderstanding with his wife, words spreads that he has decided to kill himself and end his misery once and for all.
But when his friends, neighbours and fellow citizens get wind of his upcoming plans, they all rush to his side…not to get him to change his mind, but to convince him that his death could really mean something—if he would just frame it as a statement for their personal cause before he goes. Suddenly finding that he wields a strange significance, Semyon must fight for the life he isn’t sure he wants as opposing forces jostle for power over his agency.
Erdman’s 1928 masterpiece is one of the finest bits of theatre to come out of Communist Russia. Paired with our love of dark, classic satire that still has something urgent to say, we ask: what have we become when a corpse is worth more than a life?
Cast size: Six or more.
Image references: After Hours (1985), Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment at Schauspiel Frankfurt (2016), a Jason Patterson cartoon, The New Yorker (2016), The Substance (2024)