LEAD CREATIVES JOIN ROBOTA team
We’re starting something new with the University of Oxford’s Schwarzman Centre this summer, launching its first full-scale theatre production - ROBOTA. We’re excited to see where this partnership will take us.
Lisa Maguire, Executive Director at Headlong:
“We created a new base in Oxford in 2024.
It’s a place we know and love from our shows at Oxford Playhouse.
Now we’re rooting ourselves deeper into the creative life of the city, making something ambitious with the University of Oxford.”
The Schwarzman Centre is a new £185m music and arts venue. It is also home to Oxford University faculties, like English, Philosophy and the new Institute for Ethics in AI.
By blending research with the playful curiosity of theatre-making we get to expand ideas and questions further. Expect work that provokes, challenges, and invites people to feel - and think - big.
“ROBOTA is the perfect spark for this new partnership. We’re fusing our bold approach to theatre with state-of-the-art research to confront the urgent question of our times.”
We are delighted to be commissioning the imaginative Ella Road (The Phlebotomist, Black Mirror) for the first time at Headlong. She will be adapting Karel Čapek’s original and uncannily incisive 1920’s play R.U.R.
And we are pleased to welcome back the powerhouse Roy Alexander Weise (The Hot Wing King at the National Theatre, Much Ado About Nothing at The RSC) as director, following his work with us on Kimber Lee’s untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play.
ROBOTA promises to be high-voltage; a collision of theatre, Sci-Fi and philosophy, confronting the existential promise - and threat - of AI.
Meet the team
About Ella
Ella Road is a writer from London. She co-wrote with Charlie Brooker the episode ‘Eulogy’ from the just-released Black Mirror season for Netflix. She also staffed on the English language remake of Call My Agent for Amazon and Doctor Who for The BBC.
Her first play The Phlebotomist premiered at the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs in Spring 2018 and transferred to the Main House in Spring 2019. The play was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate theatre and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
About Roy
Roy Alexander Weise is a director, writer, facilitator, dramaturg and cultural leader with a passion for empowerment through storytelling. He was Joint Artistic Director & CEO of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre between 2019-2023.
Recent credits include: Safe Space (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Hot Wing King, Master Harold and the Boys, Nine Night (also West End), Dead Don’t Floss (National Theatre); Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester International Festival, Headlong & Young Vic).
