Papatango Theatre announces World Premiere of Hanna

Papatango today announce the full tour dates for the world première of Sam Potter’s Hanna which she wrote as part of her residency with the company – the play is also published by Nick Hern Books. Directed by the company’s Artistic Director George Turvey and starring Sophie Khan Levy, Hanna opens at the Arcola Theatre on 5 January 2018, with previews from 3 January, and runs until 20 January ahead of a 10-venue national tour to Cheltenham, Oxford, Canterbury, Bedford, Luton, Exeter, Mold, Liverpool, Greenwich and Cardiff.

“The only words are to do with adoption. But that’s not what happened to us. What happened to us was something quite different.”

Being a young mum is supposed to be hard – but for Hanna, the only thing she’s ever been brilliant at is raising her beloved daughter Ellie.

Until a DNA test reveals staggering news. Ellie is not Hanna’s child. And now her ‘real’ parents want to meet.

How can an ancient mix-up in an overstretched maternity ward be explained to a three-year-old? Is Hanna supposed to let these strangers into her daughter’s life? Forced to question what being a parent really means, Hanna makes a drastic decision that will change all their lives.

This funny, heartfelt and compelling world premiere from Off West End Award nominee Sam Potter asks what family means in a modern society, delicately weaving in questions of racial identity, economic privilege, and the lottery of birth.

Sam Potter is a writer and director. In 2015 she was Papatango’s Resident Playwright supported by the BBC Performing Arts Fund and was one of five writers invited to take part in the Tricycle Theatre’s inaugural new writers programme, NW6. Her debut play, Mucky Kid, opened at Theatre503 in 2013 and earned her a place on the 2015 Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme with Papatango. Her other writing credits include Tuesday Play, Daniel and The Same Old Same Old Same. She is currently the Writer-in-Residence at the North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford. As a director, she has worked at Hampstead Theatre, RSC, National Theatre and Glyndebourne Opera.

Sophie Khan Levy’s theatre credits include Fracked (Chichester Festival Theatre and national tour), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Christmas Truce, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Love’s Labour’s Won (RSC) and Cymbeline (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry). Her radio credits include Pilgrim’s Progress.

George Turvey co-founded Papatango and became its sole Artistic Director in 2013. He most recently directed After Independence (2016 Alfred Fagon Audience Award) for the company at the Arcola Theatre and in its adaptation on BBC Radio 4. Turvey trained as an actor and has appeared on stage and screen, including the leading roles in the world première of Arthur Miller’s No Villain and the world tour of Batman Live. As a dramaturg he has led the development of all of Papatango’s plays and led each instalment of the Papatango New Writing Prize. He is a visiting lecturer at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama and the co-author of the forthcoming book ‘Being A Playwright: A Career Guide For Writers’, due for publication with Nick Hern Books in 2018.