Struggling theatres must ‘programme their way out’, says Young Vic director

Theatres facing financial difficulty can only prosper by “programming their way out of it”, according to the Young Vic artistic director, Nadia Fall, who has announces her new slate of shows, including an anti-Trump musical version of Thelma & Louise.Fall, who took the helm at the Young Vic in 2025 and oversaw staff cuts after a £500,000 deficit in the last financial year, said theatres must put on unmissable productions in order to balance the books.She said: “We need more investment in the arts: I need philanthropists and theatre supporters, but a big part where I do have agency is to programme my way out of it.”One of the Young Vic’s big bets for this autumn is its musical of Thelma & Louise, based on the film directed by Ridley Scott, which was written by Callie Khouri, who is on board for Fall’s new production. Music comes from Grammy-winning Neko Case of the New Pornographers and it opens on 3 September.Fall said her directorial debut, Brides, which was her first venture into cinema and premiered at Sundance, was inspired by the story of two women on a chaotic road trip as they attempt to escape violent domestic lives.“I think it’s still a feminist story,” she said. “And if we’re looking at Trump’s America, the rights of a woman are going majorly backwards. So I think we do need a feminist musical, and hopefully it’ll bring in a crowd.”Shedinburgh also opens in September and brings Edinburgh fringe performers, including Sara Pascoe and Inua Ellams, to the Young Vic in an immersive space. Shedinburgh began at the Edinburgh festival during the pandemic, championing experimental writing. It will be the first time it has come to London.Other shows include Ben Whishaw and Kathryn Hunter starring in Eurotrash, an adaptation of Christian Kracht’s dark novel about a writer who takes his elderly mother on a road trip through the Swiss Alps. Fall said she was “really obsessed about taking risk, being artistically led and being international” and that the production ticked all those boxes.Fall is directing the August Wilson play Gem of the Ocean, while Tiago Rodrigues – director of the Festival d’Avignon – brings his Interstellar-ish father-daughter drama La Distance to south London. There’s a world premiere of debbie tucker green’s dissent – a near-future story where censorship and surveillance are part of everyday life. “It’s very disconcerting,” says Fall. “Protest is illegal; you’ve got to keep an eye on your colleague. Don’t question anything. You know, these are things, these are tropes that we’re seeing in our real lives right now.”Fall was speaking on the morning that a new Arts Council England report showed the dire state of touring in the country, revealing that the number of plays touring England had fallen 64% since 2019.The Young Vic has had success, such as James Graham’s Punch, which started life at Nottingham Playhouse before transferring to south London, then the West End and winning two Oliviers – including best new play. But Fall said splitting the box office takings and the Theatre Tax Relief can make the collaborations less attractive to some London institutions.Fall said: “We want to hold hands more with our … with all my brilliant colleagues up and down the country. But then how do we do that, because actually economically it’s quite challenging.”She called for “incentives at government level to make that partnership viable”.