27 March – 5 May

The foothills of the French Pyrenees during the Second World War. Jo Lalande’s village is occupied by German soldiers guarding the frontier to neutral Spain. While he is tending his family’s flock of sheep (his father is absent, a prisoner-of-war), Jo follows a bear cub into the woods, where he spies a stranger. Following him to a remote hill-farm belonging to the reclusive widow, Madame Horcada, Jo learns their dangerous secret: together they smuggle Jewish children, refugees from the war and the Holocaust, escaping over the border and into Spain. All the while, hoping against hope, they wait for their lost daughter and granddaughter, Anya. Sworn to secrecy, Jo risks everything – until the very German soldier he has befriended looks set to betray him.

Michael Morpurgo’s war story celebrates the triumph of a spirited community who stubbornly resist their invading aggressor. This newly commissioned adaptation marks the Barn Theatre’s fifth Morpurgo collaboration after the critically acclaimed productions of The Mozart Question, The Butterfly Lion, and Simon Reade’s adaptations of An Elephant in the Garden and Private Peaceful.

The production will be the fourth play by Simon Reade to be produced by the Cotswold award-winning theatre and the second to make its world premiere there. The production will also see Reade reunite with director Mark Leipacher (Artistic Director of The Faction), who has worked on multiple productions of Reade’s adaptation of Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful.

Joining Leipacher on the creative team are Asaf Zohar (Here at Southwark Playhouse) as Composer, Musical Director & Sound Designer, Ceci Calf (The Mozart Question at The Barn Theatre) as Set & Costume Designer and Murong Li (Hedda Gabler at Reading Rep) as Lighting Designer.

The full cast of Waiting For Anya are Christopher Bianchi (Othello) as Henri, Tom Hendryk (Ted Lasso) as Lieutenant Weissman, Jack Heydon (Red Rose Chain Associate Artist) as Jo Lalande, Andrea Johannes (Housewarming) as Lise, Yiftach Mizrahi (From Here To Eternity, Annie Get Your Gun) as Benjamin, Alison Reid (An Elephant in the Garden) as Alice Horcada, Perri Snowdon (War Horse) as Pierre, and Christopher Staines (Amy’s View, Hamlet) as Corporal Wilhelm.

Michael Morpurgo said of the production, “The Butterfly Lion, The Mozart Question, Elephant in the Garden, Private Peaceful. The wonderful Barn has put on play after play adapted from my books, and every one has been extraordinary and unforgettable. 

And now Waiting for Anya. This is inspired by a true story of a small community living in their mountain village in the Pyrenees under Nazi Occupation in WW2, of their courage in aiding the escape of Jewish children over the mountains into neutral Spain. 

I happened upon the village of Lescun some 30 years ago, met the people there, listened to their stories, saw the sheeps, cheese being made during the Transhumance, heard the music they sing, walked the fields and tracks the refugees walked, saw the caves where they hid, stood atop a mountain, one foot in Spain, one in France. I had to write their story. I called it Waiting for Anya 

And now we have the play, commission by The Barn, and written with wonderful insight by Simon Reade, who has adapted so many of my stories so perfectly. I cannot wait to see this production, to be transported from Cirencester to Lescun, to hear the music, hear the eagles’ cry, to live the story, again for me, but maybe for you the first time. 

Thank you to The Barn, thank you Simon, thank you cast and crew, and thank you for coming.”

Simon Reade said of his adaptation, “My stage and screen Morpurgo adaptations go back twenty years. I’m lured to Michael’s stories because they are sophisticated tales that see the world through the eyes of a child – the erratic, immoral, incomprehensible adult world. The adults can learn from the children; they can rediscover their childlike curiosity and open-heartedness and fresh perspective, unsullied by the childishness of compromised adulthood. But Morpurgo’s child protagonists are also naïve, where the child doesn’t necessarily see the whole picture.

Waiting for Anya is a story where no one is quite what they appear to be on the surface. It is profoundly moving and yet doesn’t invite our passive appreciation: it demands we take action, that we stand up and be counted. Not just in self-less individual acts, but together, as communities, our still small voice of conscience collectively singing out loud and clear – quite literally, music being the great redeemer in Michael’s stories. 

Address: Barn Theatre, 3 Beeches Road, Cirencester, GL7 1BN

Box Office (Phone): 01285 648 255 (M-F 10am-10pm, Sa 1pm-10pm)

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WAITING FOR ANYA

By Michael Morpurgo

Adapted by Simon Reade

Dates: 27^th March – 5^th May