Debbie Hannan wins the Young Vic’s Genesis Future Directors Award

17 April 2018

Debbie Hannan has been awarded the second 2018 Genesis Future Directors Award winner by the Young Vic. She will direct Things of Dry Hours in The Clare at the Young Vic this summer, as part of Kwame Kwei-Armah’s first season as Artistic director.

Debbie Hannan trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and currently works as Trainee Director at the Royal Court Theatre. She was chosen by the Young Vic and the Genesis Foundation committee after an intense and challenging selection process, which saw her stand out from hundreds of playwrights pitching their idea to the panel in three minutes for a play at The Clare.

The award, created in 2012, was designed to support and nurture emerging directors by providing them with an opportunity to explore and develop their craft, as they create their first fully-resourced stage production at the Young Vic. Recipients of past Genesis Future Directors Awards include John Wilkinson (2018), Lucy J Skilbeck and Nancy Medina (2017), Ola Ince (2016), Bryony Shanahan (2016), Rikki Henry (2015) Finn Beames (2014), Tinuke Craig (2014), Matthew Xia (2013) and Ben Kidd (2012).

A celebrated piece of radical theatre by American radical playwright Naomi Wallace, Things Of Dry Hours, was produced at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre in 2007 after a run at the New York Theater Workshop. Set in the Southern US state of Alabama during the 1930s, the play explores race, class and the impact of the Communist Party on the lives of ordinary working people. Weaving the spiritual into the political, Things of Dry Hours interrogates the idea that humans cannot change; are we really all that black and white?

To read more about Debbie and past productions she has directed click here

For more information about the Genesis Foundation Future Directors Award, click here.

Things of Dry Hours

Wednesday 15 August – Saturday 25 August 2018

The Clare, Young Vic, 66 The Cut, Waterloo, London, SE1 8LZ

Performances: Monday – Saturday at 7.45pm | Matinees on Wednesday 22 and Saturday 25 August at 2.45pm 
Tickets: Previews 15 – 18 August £15
Concessions available.

Box Office: www.youngvic.org | 020 7922 2922