YORK Theatre Royal's spring and summer season aims to address the imbalance in women's roles in theatrical work and the industry as a whole.

Under the title Of Women Born, a selection of shows has been programmed by an all-female group of actors and theatre-makers, with Philip Meeks's newly revised three-hander Murder, Margaret & Me opening the "women's work" from February 17 to March 4. Susie Blake will play celebrated character actress Margaret Rutherford, Nichola McAuliffe, thriller writer Agatha Christie, and late replacement Andrina Carroll, the Spinster, in a story of friendship, tugs of war with Miss Marple and terrible secrets.

York Theatre Royal and Bolton's Octagon Theatre link up for Deborah McAndrew's new adaptation of Anne Bronte's 1848 novel, The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, a passionate story of a women's fight for independence. After young widow Helen Graham and her son arrive at the desolate estate, she isolates herself from the village but becomes the subject of village gossip and speculation. When young farmer Tom Markham falls in love with her, she is torn apart by her attraction to Markham and the secrets of her past.

McAndrew and Bronte are not the only women to play their part in this production. So too will director Elizabeth Newman and designer Amanda Stoodley, and their show will run in York from April 25 to May 6.

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Playwright Deborah McAndrew

At the core of the season will be the latest community play to be mounted by the Theatre Royal and its resident company, Pilot Theatre, from June 20 to July 1.

Written by Bridget Foreman, Everything Is Possible, The York Suffragettes, will be co-directed by Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster and Pilot associate director Katie Posner and designed by Sara Perks, with a lighting design by Prema Mehta, while York actresses Barbara Marten and Andrina Carroll, both members of the all-female panel, will lead the company.

Already the cast of around 100 women and 50 men is in place for Foreman's story of an ordinary Heworth housewife risking her life and her family to join the Suffragette movement in 1913 as women across the country, outraged by inequality and prejudice, begin to rise up and demand change.

In York, women run safe houses, organise meetings, smash windows and fire-bomb pillar boxes. Their actions are dangerous, exhilarating and ground-breaking, and for the first time, the story of York's suffragettes will be told.

York Press:

York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster

"There was a lot of discussion about what was a 'women's season', but what it's come down to is that it's a season with much more of a female perspective," says artistic director Damian Cruden. "That's evident when you look at the whole project, and the reason for that is it's important for us, as a company, to have different voices heard. To achieve that, it helps to have a particular focus.

"We've done that with our TakeOver programme, when young people take over the running of the theatre and we bring together professional and non-professional people, giving access to young voices and raising issues within the work the Theatre Royal presents, which stops it being a mono-view. The wider the programme we have, the more diverse the voices are."

Looking specifically at this year's Of Women Born season, Damian says: "This season, we will take on board voices we've not used before and that allows us to develop our practice and the way we programme from now on.

"It's about people taking ownership of theatre, and as we get better at responding to people's ideas, we will continue to get better at having that dialogue, and so it becomes the culture of the organisation. With that ownership of the culture, in turn the culture becomes more secure in its community."

For full details of the York Theatre Royal season, visit yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Tickets can be booked online and on 01904 623568.