Wings runs at the Young Vic until 4 Nov. This production tells the story of Emily Stilson who once walked on the wings of aeroplanes until a severe stroke drastically alters the way she encounters the world.
We're very pleased to announce that we'll be hosting three post show talks exploring stroke, brain injury, neurological research and the staging of our production. These will give you the chance to listen in on an engaging discussion between our varied selection of panelists.
If you would like to attend these talks, come and see the show on the evening that the talk takes place.
Thursday 21 September
In Conversation with Arthur Kopit and David Lan
David Lan is a playwright, theatre director and social anthropologist. Artistic director of the Young Vic since 2000, he has produced more than 150 shows and directed, amongst others, A Raisin in the Sun, Doctor Faustus, The Daughter-in-Law, The Skin of Our Teeth, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Blackta, as well as As You Like It in the West End.
Playwright Arthur Kopit is the author of Wings (Tony Nominee, Finalist for Pulitzer Prize). Current projects include Discovery of America, a play based on the journals of the Spanish conquistador, Cabeza de Vaca; and two new plays Secrets of the Rich and The Incurables. Mr. Kopit is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Lark Play Development Center where he heads the Lark Playwrights’ Workshop.
Thursday 5 October
In Conversation with Juliet Stevenson and Lucy Maran and Sally McVicker
Juliet Stevenson returns to the Young Vic in Wings following her acclaimed performance in Happy Days.
Other theatre includes: Mary Stuart, Hamlet (Almeida/West End); The Heretic, Alice Trilogy, The Country, Other Worlds (Royal Court); Duet for One, for which she was nominated an Olivier Award for Best Actress (Almeida/West End); The Seagull, Private Lives, Hedda Gabler, Yerma (National Theatre), Death and the Maiden, for which she won an Oliver Award for Best Actress (Royal Court/West End); Les Liasons Dangereuses, As You Like It, Troilus and Cressida and Measure for Measure, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actress and was awarded the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress (all RSC).
Lucy Maran is a speech and language specialist who works in the Acute and Community Stroke Team at the Royal Hospital London.
Dr Sally McVicker is a speech and language specialist who runs Aphasia Reconnect - a charity helping people with aphasia re-connect with life in the community.
Thursday 19 October
In Conversation with Natalie Abrahami, Dr Paul Jarman and Peter Rothwell
Natalie Abrahami is a former Genesis Fellow and Associate Director at the Young Vic.
Young Vic credits includes: Happy Days, After Miss Julie and Ah, Wilderness! and the short films MAYDAY, The Roof and Life's a Pitch.
Her credits as former co-Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre include: Vanya and The Kreutzer Sonata which later transferred to La MaMa, New York.
Other credits include: Queen Anne (Royal Shakespeare Company / Theatre Royal Haymarket), How the Whale Became and Other Tales (Royal Opera House), The Eleventh Capital (Royal Court), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Headlong) and Pericles (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre). Natalie was also an Associate Artist at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton between 2013 and 2015 and Associate Director at Hull Truck in 2012 where she directed Yerma and Hitchcock Blonde. Natalie won the James Menzies-Kitchin Award for Directors in 2005 for her double-bill of Play and Not I (Battersea Arts Centre).
Dr Paul Jarman is a Consultant Neurologist based at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. He trained at Oxford and London Universities before completing research and a PhD in molecular genetic aspects of movement disorders. His subspecialist interests include Parkinson's disease and movement disorders, acute neurology and use of botulinum toxin to treat post stroke spasticity. He is interested in medical education and as Training Programme Director for neurology in London is passionate about training the next generation of neurologists.
Peter Rothwell is the Professor of Neurology at Oxford University and Director of the Centre for Prevention of Stroke and Dementia (CPSD), which he founded with funding from the Wolfson Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. His research group, which includes about 40 staff, studies the causes of stroke and strategies for improving prevention. Rothwell has published over 500 research papers and has been the recipient of many awards, including the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education.
Wings is generously supported by the Richenthal Foundation, Wellcome Trust and Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor advised fund of the London Community Foundation.
