Rattigan’s French Without Tears leads Orange Tree autumn 2015 season

A revival of Terence Rattigan comedy French Without Tears will lead the Orange Tree Theatre’s autumn season.

Artistic director Paul Miller will direct the production, which also features design by Simon Daw and music by David Shrubsole. It will run at the theatre in Richmond from October 8 to November 21, with a press night on October 13.

Sharman Macdonald’s When We Were Women is also to be revived in a staging directed by Eleanor Rhode, which will run from September 3 to October 3. A press night will be held on September 7.

James Turner will design the play, which has lighting design by Mike Robertson, sound design by David Gregory and costume supervision by Holly Rose Henshaw.

The season will also see the return of the Orange Tree’s production of The Distance, which ran at the venue last year and starred Helen Baxendale.

A touring production by Wizard Presents, I Believe in Unicorns, will run at the theatre over the festive season from December 23 to January 9.

As previously reported, the season will see the Orange Tree’s production Pomona transfer to Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre and the National Theatre’s Temporary Studio.

Miller said the autumn season was “a classic Orange Tree mix of contemporary work and rare revivals”.

He added: “We are no longer regularly funded by the arts council but our spirit of adventure remains strong: more new work is in the pipeline for early in 2016 and we’re really proud to be collaborating with Snapdragon, Sheffield Theatres, Wizard Presents, the NT and the Royal Exchange to deliver this autumn’s five exciting productions.”

Elsewhere, the Orange Tree has appointed Richard Humphreys as the chair of its broad of trustees, while Kate Ellis has been named vice chair.

The theatre is also launching a new masters degree in theatre directing in conjunction with St Mary’s University in Twickenham, with the first intake of students in September.

Four students will be taught by practitioners at the theatre for a year alongside academic studies, and each will direct a showcase production at the venue at the end of the year-long course.

Last week, figures released by the theatre revealed it had more than doubled the number of people attending shows there for the first time year-on-year.