New David Farr play A Dead Body in Taos to premiere this autumn

New David Farr play A Dead Body in Taos will have its world premiere this autumn.

Produced by Fuel, Rachel Bagshaw will direct the production which will preview at Bristol Old Vic (30 September – 1 October) prior to opening at Wilton’s Music Hall (27 October – 12 November). The show will then move to Warwick Arts Centre. (15 – 19 November).

The piece is described as “part mystery, part sci-fi epic and part love story”. Bagshaw is joined on the creative team by designer Ti Green, video designer Sarah Readman, lighting Designer Katy Morison, movement director Ingrid Mackinnon and composers Ben and Max Ringham.

The cast features Gemma Lawrence as Sam and Eve Ponsonby as Kath who will be joined by David Burnett, Nathan Ives-Moiba, Clara Onyemere and Dominic Thorburn

The body of a 70-year-old woman is found in the New Mexico desert near the town of Taos, a place of pilgrimage for those seeking to embrace alternative forms of living. She is Kath Horvath. On her body the police find a message for her daughter, to whom she has not spoken for many years. The message reads, ‘Sam. Do not grieve. I am not here’.

A Dead Body in Taos tells Sam’s story as she travels to New Mexico to bury her estranged mother. Gradually Sam uncovers her mother’s traumatic past, her attempts to break away from her stifling American small-town upbringing, her protest days in the 60s, her experiments with alternative lifestyles and her lifelong, fruitless quest for freedom which eventually left her with nothing (and, as it turns out, everything) to live for.

And this leads Sam to discover a shocking secret behind the mysterious message her mother left. For in Taos, Kath Horvath has secretly exercised the ultimate right as a consumer – the right to defy death. In the most remarkable way possible.

And it leaves her daughter with a terrible decision to make.

For more information and tickets, visit bristololdvic.org.uk, wiltons.org.uk or www.warwickartscentre.co.uk.