RICE on tour

Following its acclaimed run at the Orange Tree in 2021, Rice tours the UK in 2022

“Office politics brought sharply to life…Michele Lee’s two-hander is a thoughtful take on the power of women at work” The Guardian

★★★★ “A powerful, thought-provoking and funny play about cultural identity, class, race and power told through two very different women, who form an unlikely friendship” Broadway World

★★★★ “Michele Lee has created great characters and a compelling story” Spy in the Stalls

“Ambitious and strikingly designed” The Stage

“Matthew Xia’s portrait of two ethnic minority women is a wickedly funny and surprisingly touching take on race, class and environmentalism” East by South East

“Do see this work of understated virtuosity, rich in character, substance, a shape-shifting singularity” Fringe Review

“Compelling… Rice makes for appetising theatre” Close-Up Theatre

Nisha is a young hotshot executive working for Golden Fields, Australia’s largest producer of rice. Ambitious and headstrong, she’s determined to become the first female Indian CEO in Australia. She’s close to sealing a contract with the Indian government, which would see her company take over India’s national rice distribution system.

A secret deal worth billions.

Working late nights in the office she encounters Yvette, an older Chinese migrant, who cleans up her mess. Yvette has her own entrepreneurial ambitions, but her daughter faces court after participating in a protest against the unethical practices of a national supermarket chain.

The two form a powerful – if unlikely – bond as they navigate the complexities of their lives and the world at large.

“a heady broth of gender, generation and globalisation” Australian Stage

Brimming with wickedly humorous observations on globalisation, politics and family, this is the UK premiere of a powerful new play from Asian-Australian writer Michele Lee, which has won numerous awards including the Australian Writers’ Guild Award for Best Original Stage Play.

Directed by Matthew Xia (Amsterdam, Blood Knot), Artistic Director of Actors Touring Company, who produce international contemporary theatre – making the global, local and the local, global.

An Orange Tree Theatre and Actors Touring Company co-production, in association with Theatre Royal Plymouth

OT Elsewhere

This play is on tour around the UK in early 2022

5 – 12 Feb Theatre Royal Plymouth BOOK HERE
18 – 19 Feb North Wall, Oxford BOOK HERE
4 – 5 March Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough BOOK HERE
8 – 9 March Crucible Theatre, Sheffield BOOK HERE
17 – 19 March Unity Theatre, Liverpool BOOK HERE
24 – 26 March Ustinov, Theatre Royal Bath BOOK HERE
29 – 30 March HOME Manchester BOOK HERE
1 – 2 April Northern Stage, Newcastle BOOK HERE
13 – 14 April York Theatre Royal BOOK HERE

Publicity image by The Other Richard