American playwright George Brant’s Grounded, which “targets our assumptions about war, family and what it is to be a woman”, opens the new season in The Door at Birmingham REP.
The play, which enjoyed sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe, the Gate Theatre London and the Studio Theatre, Washington, is a “searing and beautiful one woman-show that scrutinises the morality of modern warfare through the eyes of a female fighter pilot as an unexpected pregnancy ends her career in the sky”.
Director Christopher Haydon said, “Grounded is one of the finest plays I have ever directed. It's an extraordinary, caustic exploration of one of the most important issues of our time and it packs a multitude of ideas into a single, brilliantly compelling character.
“Since opening in Edinburgh last year, it’s been hugely exciting to see how thousands of people have connected with it and so I’m thrilled at the opportunity to take it on tour and allow it to reach an even wider audience.”
Lucy Ellinson plays the pilot. Her previous credits for the Gate include The Trojan Women and Tenet, both in 2012. Other theatre credits include Clare Duffy’s Money The Game Show at the Bush Theatre in 2013 and Will Eno’s Oh the Humanity and Other Good Intentions for Northern Stage, Newcastle in 2011.
Christopher Haydon directed Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men at Birmingham REP in 2013. As artistic director of the Gate his work includes Bruce Norris’s Purple Heart, Hassan Abdulrazzak’s The Prophet and Wittenberg by David Davalos.
Grounded runs in The Door at Birmingham REP from Thursday until Saturday (4 to 6 September).