With both artists sporting boxing gloves on the poster, it promised to be a show to remember. However, when the much anticipated 1985 display of combined works by veteran master Andy Warhol and brilliant new star Jean-Michel Basquiat appeared in New York, reviewers slammed it. The narrative behind the exhibition is now being portrayed in a new play at London's Young Vic.

Kwame Kwei-Armah, the Young Vic's creative director, will helm the world premiere of Anthony McCarten's drama The Collaboration, starring Paul Bettany (Wandavision) as Warhol and Jeremy Pope (One Night in Miami) as Basquiat. "Invite us behind the iconography and fame, and inside the intimate friendship between two artists," Kwei-Armah said of the production, which will be created by Anna Fleischle. He stated that the piece will encourage viewers to "lean in close and challenge our preconceptions."

The artists' friendship, as well as the issue of whether one was taking advantage of the other's celebrity, is the topic of a new play by Ishmael Reed, which will premiere in the United States next month. The Slave Who Loved Caviar is now showing at New York's Theater for the New City.

The Collaboration will be followed by a transfer of a Tony Award-winning, re-orchestrated production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! at the Young Vic in February. "Unlocks a fresh perspective on a great American musical," Kwei-Armah stated of the film directed by Daniel Fish. The 2019 Bard SummerScape performance, according to Michael Billington of The Guardian, was "extraordinary" and "nothing was as expected" in this revival of the well-worn musical. The audience at New York's Circle in the Square ate chilli that had been cooked on stage during the intermission, and the set was intended as a communal center. The revival is described as "funny and sexy, provocative and probing, without changing a word of the text" by the Young Vic.

Deirdre McLaughlin, the 2021 Genesis Future Directors prize winner, will direct a new play in the studio space, according to the Young Vic's spring season release. The theatre's Five Pieces strand will include a series of five-minute plays directed by James Barnes, David Furlong, David Gilbert, Abigail Sewell, and Khadifa Wong, written by babirye bukilwa, Gal Le Cornec, Martin Crimp, Erinn Dhesi, and Mufaro Makubika.

The Young Vic will also be encouraging artists to explore the medium of TikTok as part of its Creative Headspace initiative, which was formed in reaction to the pandemic's catastrophic effect on arts freelancers and is aimed to encourage early-career theatre-makers.

Thanks to Chris Wiegand at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.