Home-grown talent showcased at Royal & Derngate this summer

Audiences will have the chance to enjoy performances from Royal & Derngate’s community groups this July, with the Young Company performing the satirical masterpiece The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and the Actors Company and Community Choir presenting Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs), inspired by The Beggar’s Opera.

These productions celebrate the theatre's thriving participation programme, which saw 11,457 children and young people take part in regular activity during 2025/26, including seven performance opportunities. Across its Young Company, Actors Company and Community Choir, Royal & Derngate delivered a combined 65 weeks of regular activity during 2025/26, providing opportunities for people of all ages to develop their creativity, confidence and performance skills.

Set in Chicago, a city of jazz and gangsters, prohibition and poverty, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is Brecht’s biting political satire about Hitler’s rise to power. Royal & Derngate Young Company present a fresh adaptation by Pulitzer, Olivier, and Tony award-winning American playwright Bruce Norris, with its blistering examination of the rise of the modern day far right and our own 21st century demagogues.

Directed by Anna Simpson, with sound design by Jude Taylor, set design by Lauren Connolly and costume design by Victoria Youngson, the play can be seen on Friday 3 and Saturday 4 July.

A fortnight later, Royal & Derngate’s Actors Company, for non-professional actors aged over 21, takes to the Royal stage, along with the theatre’s Community Choir, to perform Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs), a wonderful re-imagining of the John Gay classic, The Beggar’s Opera, by Carl Grose.

Bursting with wit, wonder and weirdness, this twisted morality tale of our times is directed by Kitty Benford, with original composition and music by Charles Hazelwood, supported by sound design and musical direction by Jude Taylor, and can be seen on Friday 17 and Saturday 18 July.

Tickets for both productions can be booked by calling Box Office on 01604 624811 or online at www.royalandderngate.co.uk. Performances start at 7pm in the evenings with a matinee at 2pm on the Saturday afternoons.

Tickets for Dead Dog in a Suitcase are £13* and the age recommendation is 14 plus. Tickets for The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui are priced from £12* and the age recommendation is 12 plus.

This amateur production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd.

* A non-refundable £4 per-transaction fee applies for bookings of £20 and over. Does not apply to Groups and Members. Prices may change subject to availability.