White Noise
Overview of the production
“Parks has written precisely the play for this anguished moment” – Alexis Soloski
Thirty-somethings Leo, Misha, Ralph and Dawn have been inseparable since college.
Making their way together in the big city, they are liberal, open-minded and socially aware. Misha is producing the hit online show ‘Ask A Black’; Ralph is waiting for tenure at his university, and as a lawyer, Dawn spends her days fighting for social justice. Leo would be a talented visual artist – if only he could sleep. As best friends and lovers, confident in their woke-ness, their connection with each other is stronger than anything else – until, that is, Leo is assaulted by the police in a racially motivated incident. Shaken to the core, he brings to the group an extreme proposition.
Written by Suzan-Lori Parks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Topdog/Underdog and Father Comes Home from the Wars, White Noise takes an unflinching look at race in the 21st century from both a black and white perspective. After an acclaimed world premiere at the Public Theater in New York, it has its European premiere at The Bridge, directed by Polly Findlay.
The Jewish Chronicle ★★★★★
"Its ambitious scope of ideas ensures that the play is funny, challenging, audacious and profoundly unsettling"
The Daily Telegraph ★★★★
“It’s a blazing, bruising, urgent piece of theatre”
Financial Times ★★★★
“An intentionally provocative play that coats its ugly premise with wit and words.”
The Stage ★★★★
“Brilliant, savage, surrealist satire from the great Suzan-Lori Parks”
Time Out ★★★★
“That sense of it being absolutely of the moment, makes its coruscating plea for people to find new ways of creating freedom and equality even more necessary.”
What's On Stage ★★★★
General Information
Ticket prices
£15, £25, £35, £45, £55
Premium tickets £75
Schools rate
Tickets reduced to £15 on Monday – Thursday performances, all price bands excluding premiums. Email groups@bridgetheatre.co.uk to reserve your group today
Performance schedule
Monday – Saturday: 7.30pm
Wednesdays & Saturdays: 2.30pm
Length
Approximately 2hrs 45mins including an interval
Access performances
Captioned: Saturday 6 November 2.30pm
Audio Described: Wednesday 10 November 2.30pm
Additional resources
We’ve curated an initial list of resources we have found helpful in our conversations around race. We hope you’ll find them helpful too.
We'd love to keep you up to date with our news and productions
Additional content
From the programme
'It's One of the Most Radical Plays I've Ever Written'
Bim Adewunmi speaks to Suzan-Lori Parks, writer of White Noise
The origins of White Noise came from Suzan-Lori Parks herself. Her 2014 play, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 and 3), set in the 1860s during the American Civil War , is about an enslaved Black man, Hero, caught up in the mess of a very…
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To Be Black and Human is Not a Contradiction
Kojo Koram
The famous Martinican psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon once argued that “The Negro is not. Any more than the white man.” In making such a counter-intuitive declaration, Fanon was one of the first to publicly recognise that the racial…
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A Very American Story?
Olivette Otele
White Noise challenges our assumptions about the legacies of colonial enslavement. It explores the sources of anxiety in the characters’ relationships, as the spectre of enslavement plunges them into an experiment that will change their understanding…
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Cast
James Corrigan
Theatre includes King Lear in the West End; Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, Two Noble Kinsmen, The 7 Acts of Mercy, Wendy and Peter Pan, Othello and The Merchant of Venice for the RSC; winner of Monologue Slam UK at Theatre Royal Stratford East; Hay Fever and The Big Meal at Bath Theatre Royal; and A Streetcar Named Desire at Oxford Playhouse.
Television This is Going to Hurt, Temple, Manhunt and The Tempest.
Film includes This Nan’s Life and School’s Out Forever.
October 2021
Ken Nwosu
Theatre includes An Octoroon, Three Sisters and As You Like It at the National Theatre; The Alchemist, Othello and The Merchant of Venice for the RSC; and Ghosts at HOME.
Film includes The Witches, Christopher Robin, Look the Other Way and Run and Cold Blow Lane.
Television includes Sticks and Stones, Killing Eve, The Letter for the King, Upstart Crow and Catastrophe.
October 2021
Faith Omole
Training Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Theatre includes A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe; Standing at the Sky’s Edge at the Crucible; An Ideal Husband in the West End; Bush Meat for HighTide; Twelfth Night and The Rolling Stone (also Orange Tree and West Yorkshire Playhouse) at the Royal Exchange; Custody for Faith Drama Productions and Talawa; Roadkill for Pachamama Productions; and Walk in the Light at the National Theatre.
Television includes We Are Lady Parts and Endeavour.
Film includes Last of my Kind, Love Type D and He Loves Me.
October 2021
Helena Wilson
Theatre includes The Deep Blue Sea at Chichester Festival Theatre; Measure for Measure (Ian Charleson Award commendation), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Lady from the Sea at the Donmar; Love Me Now at the Tristan Bates; and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Old Vic.
Film includes Pinocchio.
Radio includes The Tempest (BBC Radio 3).
October 2021
Creatives
Suzan-Lori Parks
Theatre includes Topdog/Underdog (Pulitzer Prize), Porgy and Bess (Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical), The Book of Grace, Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Musical, In the Blood, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World AKA the Negro Book Of The Dead, Venus, The America Play, Father Comes Home From The Wars (Parts 1, 2 and 3) and Fucking A. Her project 365 Days/365 Plays – where she wrote a play a day for an entire year – was produced in over 700 theatres worldwide, creating one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theatre history. Upcoming: Plays for the Plague Year.
Film & television includes The United States vs Billie Holiday (writer) and Genius: Aretha (showrunner/executive producer/head writer).
Her novel Getting Mother’s Body is published by Random House.
Awards Suzan-Lori Parks is a MacArthur Fellow and was the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
In her spare time, she writes songs and fronts her band Sula & The Noise.
October 2021
Polly Findlay
Theatre includes Grayson Perry’s A Show for Normal People; A Number at The Bridge; Rutherford and Son, Beginning (also West End), As You Like It, Treasure Island, Antigone, Protest Song and Double Feature at the National Theatre; Gefährten (War Horse) at Theater des Westens, Berlin; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Limehouse at the Donmar; Ghosts at HOME; The Alchemist, The Merchant of Venice and Arden of Faversham for the RSC; Frøken Julie at Aarhus Theatre, Denmark; Krapp’s Last Tape and A Taste of Honey at Sheffield Crucible; The Country Wife and Good at the Royal Exchange; Derren Brown: Svengali in the West End and on UK tour; Twisted Tales at the Lyric Hammersmith; Honest at Royal & Derngate (also Edinburgh and Soho Theatre); Eigengrau at the Bush; and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and Thyestes at the Arcola.
Awards include Olivier for Best Entertainment (with Derren Brown, 2014), the JMK Young Director’s Award (2007) and the 2006/7 Bulldog Princeps Bursary Award at the National Theatre Studio.
October 2021
Lizzie Clachan
Theatre includes A Number at The Bridge; The Son at the Kiln (also West End); The Nico Project at Manchester International Festival and Melbourne Festival; Rutherford and Son, Absolute Hell, As You Like It, The Beaux’ Stratagem, Treasure Island, Edward II, Port and A Woman Killed With Kindness at the National Theatre; Cyprus Avenue (also Dublin, Belfast and New York), Fireworks, Adler & Gibb, Gastronauts, The Witness, Our Private Life, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Ladybird and Jumpy (also West End) at the Royal Court; Far Away, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Blindness (also New York, Toronto, Washington, DC, Mexico City, Amsterdam and UK tour) at the Donmar; Yerma (also New York and Berlin), The Life of Galileo, Macbeth and A Season in the Congo at the Young Vic; Tipping the Velvet, Contains Violence and Absolute Beginners at the Lyric Hammersmith; The Skriker at the Royal Exchange; Carmen Disruption at the Almeida; All My Sons at Regent’s Park; A Sorrow Beyond Dreams at Burgtheater, Vienna; Longing, The Trial of Ubu and Tiger Country at the Hampstead; The Rings of Saturn at Schauspiel, Cologne; Happy Days at the Crucible; Far Away at Bristol Old Vic; I’ll Be the Devil, Days of Significance and The American Pilot for the RSC; and The Architects, Money, Tropicana, Amato Saltone, Ether Frolics, Dance Bear Dance, The Ballad of Bobby Francois and The Tennis Show for Shunt, which she co-founded in 1998.
Opera includes The Mask of Orpheus, Orphée, Orpheus in the Underworld and Orpheus and Euridice for ENO; Seven Deadly Sins/Mahagonny Songspiel at the Royal Opera House; Nixon in China for Staatsoper Hanover; Jenufa for Nationale Opera & Ballet; La Traviata for Theater Basel/ENO; Pelléas et Mélisande for Teatr Wielki, Poland/ Festival d’Aix en Provence; Le Vin Herbé for Staatsoper Berlin; and Bliss for Staatsoper Hamburg.
October 2021
Natalie Pryce
Theatre includes, as Costume Designer, Is God Is at the Royal Court; Anna X in the West End; and Tales of the Turntable for ZooNation. As Set and Costume Designer: 846 Live at Theatre Royal Stratford East; Me for the World at the Young Vic; Ducklings at the Royal Exchange; For All the Women Who Thought They Were Mad at Hackney Showroom; Not Now, Bernard at the Unicorn; and Red Velvet at RADA. As Costume Supervisor: The Winter’s Tale at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Film includes Good Grief, Fourteen Fractures, Myrtle, Fellow Creatures, Swept Under Rug and (as Costume Trainee) My Name is Leon.
October 2021
Jade Hackett
Theatre includes Sylvia at the Old Vic; Nine Night at Trafalgar Studios; Into the Hoods Remixed for ZooNation; and A Monster Calls on UK and US tour.
Dance The Pied Piper at Theatre Royal Stratford East; Blaze in Germany and Dubai tour; Into the Woods in London and on UK tour; The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party at the Roundhouse; and Some Like it Hip Hop at the Peacock and UK tour.
Commercial work includes Street Dance 3D: The Movie, Adidas and the opening and closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympics and Baku 2015 European Games.
October 2021
Jackie Shemesh
Theatre includes Death of England: Delroy and Hansard at the National Theatre; Misty (also West End), The Beloved and Islands at the Bush; What If Women Ruled the World and Ceremony at Manchester International Festival; Vanya and Mary Stuart at the Almeida; The Seagull for the Jamie Lloyd Company; Changing Destiny, In the Penal Colony, Man and Oh My Sweet Land at the Young Vic; and The Return of Danton for Collective Ma’louba.
Dance includes Heavy handed, we crush the moment at the Barbican; Run Mary Run at Sadler’s Wells; Goat for Rambert; The Murmuring and Young Men for Ballet Boyz; Beheld, Hot Mess and Let’s Talk About Dis for Candoco; Girl A for Scottish Dance Theatre; and Lunatic for the National Dance Company of Wales.
Other collaborations include Il Ritorno D’Ulisse in Patria at Grange Opera; Recital for Cathy and From Canyons to Stars for Hamburg Symphony Orchestra; TUTBU TV and JRMIP at Hebbel Berlin; and Sante for the LSO.
jackieshemesh.com
October 2021
Donato Wharton
Theatre includes Under Milk Wood and Three Sisters at the National Theatre; Kein Weltuntergang for the Schaubühne, Berlin; Anatomie eines Suizids for the Berliner Ensemble, Berlin; Appropriate at the Donmar; Norma Jeane Baker of Troy at The Shed, New York; Bluets, Schlafende Männer, 4.48 Psychose, Reisende auf einem Bein and Glückliche Tage at Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg; La Maladie de la mort at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, and European tour; De meiden and Uit het leven van marionetten for Toneelgroep Amsterdam; and Playing Cards: HEARTS for Ex Machina and world tour.
Donato Wharton teaches Sound for Theatre and Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
October 2021
David Thackeray
Television includes Heartstopper, Sex Education, Extinction, It’s a Sin, Industry, I Hate Suzie, Foundation, Brave New World and Pennyworth.
October 2021
Marc Tritschler
Marc Tritschler is a pianist, music director, music supervisor and composer of music for the theatre. In 2020, he was appointed Creative Director of Music at the National Theatre.
Theatre includes A Number at The Bridge, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Donmar, Macbeth at the National Theatre and Uncle Vanya at HOME. As Composer: The Merchant of Venice for the RSC and Ghosts at HOME. As Music Director: As You Like It and A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer (Complicité) at the National Theatre; and War Horse at Theater des Westens, Berlin. As Music Supervisor: We Will Rock You in Europe.
He was previously Deputy Music Director at Friedrichstadt-Palast, Berlin.
John Rwothomack
Training Rose Bruford College.
Theatre includes The Last King of Scotland at Sheffield Theatres; and Bad Blood Blues at Theatre Deli, Sheffield.
Short film includes Ally.
October 2021
Lily Mollgaard
Current productions include My Neighbour Totoro for the RSC; The Car Man at the Royal Albert Hall; The Southbury Child, John Gabriel Borkman, Straight Line Crazy and Guys and Dolls at The Bridge Theatre; Sleeping Beauty for Matthew Bourne’s UK tour; Peaky Blinders for Rambert’s UK Tour and Tammy Faye Musical at The Almeida.
In the last twenty years Lily Mollgaard has worked on over 270 shows in the West End, on Broadway and beyond. She spent 10 years running the props department at Shakespeare’s Globe and 15 years as Prop Supervisor for Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures which included The Car Man, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Red Shoes.
THEATRE includes A Number, Beat The Devil, Talking Heads, Bach and Sons, The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage, Julius Caesar, Night Fall and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Bridge; Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre; Jesus Christ Superstar for UK tour and Broadway; Sunset Boulevard and Bombay Dreams at the Apollo Victoria Theatre and on Broadway; Joseph and Made in Dagenham at the Adelphi Theatre; The Producers, Oliver! and Shrek at Theatre Royal Drury Lane; Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward Theatre; Spamalot at the Playhouse Theatre; Sister Act at the London Palladium; Hairspray at the Shaftsbury Theatre; School of Rock at the Gillian Lynne Theatre; The Wild Duck at the Almeida; Company at the Gielgud Theatre; The Pinter Season (One, Two, Five and Six) at the Harold Pinter Theatre for the Jamie Lloyd Company; Red Shoes, Nutcracker and Midnight Bell for Matthew Bourne; Evita at Regent’s Park; Blithe Spirit at Theatre Royal Bath; Cyrano de Bergerac for the Jamie Lloyd Company; Leopoldstadt for Sonia Friedman Productions; Prince of Egypt at the Dominion Theatre and 9 to 5 at the Savoy Theatre.
August 2022
Amy Ball
Theatre includes, in the West End, Leopoldstadt, Uncle Vanya, The Son (also Kiln), The Night of the Iguana, Sweat (also Donmar), Rosmersholm, True West, The Ferryman (also Broadway), The Moderate Soprano (also Hampstead), The Birthday Party, Consent (also National Theatre), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? and Hangmen (also New York); at the Royal Court, the end of history…, seven methods of killing kylie jenner, Cyprus Avenue (also Dublin, Belfast and New York), The Cane, ear for eye, Girls and Boys, The Children, Escaped Alone (also New York) and many other productions; at the National Theatre, Paradise, Stories and Exit the King; at the Donmar, Berberian Sound Studio (Donmar); at the Almeida, The Hunt, Shipwreck, Dance Nation and Albion; A Very Very Very Dark Matter at The Bridge; and The Brothers Size at the Young Vic.
October 2021
Mandy Hackett
Tony-nominated producer Mandy Hackett serves as Associate Artistic Director and Director of Public Theater Productions at the Public Theater, New York, where she has overseen development and Broadway transfers of several shows, including Fun Home, Sweat, Eclipsed, Latin History for Morons, Sea Wall/A Life and Girl from the North Country. During her tenure at The Public, Mandy has launched innovative new programming, including Public Lab, Public Studio, Emerging Writers Group and The Master Writer Chair.
Prior to joining the Public Theater, Mandy was the founder and producer of the Underwood Theater, as well as Resident Dramaturg/Literary Manager at New York Theatre Workshop, where she had the pleasure of working with many writers, including Tony Kushner, Doug Wright, David Rabe and James Lapine. Mandy sits on the boards of The Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History and Almasi Arts. She graduated cum laude from Columbia University and lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters.
October 2021
Jesse Cameron Alick
Jesse Cameron Alick is a dramaturg, producer, poet, playwright, essayist, artistic researcher and science fiction expert. He co-founded the Subjective Theater Company and was formerly Company Dramaturg at the Public Theater, New York. He is currently Associate Artistic Director of the Vineyard Theater, New York, as well as an active freelance dramaturg and a regular artistic consultant for the Sundance Institute. He has taught theatre courses at various institutions, including NYU and Playwrights Horizons.
October 2021
Zoe Hammond
Theatre includes, as Costume Supervisor, Spring Awakening and Red Velvet at the Jerwood Vanbrugh. As Set and Costume Designer: Trashed at the Pleasance; This Heaven and Pig Girl at the Finborough; Anne Boleyn at Stratford Circus. As Assistant Designer: Glass Protégé at the Park; The Little Green Swallow at the Peacock; The Promise at Trafalgar Studios and the Donmar; Hero at the Royal Court; and various productions for David Curtis Ring. As Costume Assistant: Note to Self at Rambert; The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth and Mysterious Bruises at the Jerwood Vanbrugh; and Frozen at GBS Theatre. As Set Designer: Hello Norma Jean at the Park.
Film includes Sketching Dragons.
October 2021