Last week we concentrated on West Yorkshire for the highlights of the coming theatre season. This week we look to the rest of the county and start in the East Riding and the constantly impressive Hull Truck Theatre.

Last year the venue was celebrating its 50th anniversary, so there would always be a question if this year would have a sense of after the Lord Mayor’s party. Not a bit of it.

Around the World in 80 Days is a show that is always epic in scale. It’s being brought to the stage with a co-production between Hull Truck and Keswick’s Theatre By the Lake directed by award-winning director Hal Chambers. It’s set, apparently, to be a ‘playful, theatrical extravaganza’. The theatre is continuing its commitment to developing and giving opportunities to Hull-based writers.

Hull writer Lydia Marchant will see her play Mumsy come to the main stage through much of March. Developed through the theatre’s Grow artist development programme, this world premiere of the comedy shines a light on three generations of women as they push their circumstances and each other to chase their dreams. The theatre will also be bringing to the stage a new piece from another Hull writer, Josh Overton. The Houses Are Sinking (And the Adults Don’t Care) is based on the voices of Hull Truck’s Young Creators Group, a collection of 14 to 18-year-old theatre makers who meet at the venue. Through their discussions, the central question of the play emerged: “Why are we planning for the future when the future isn’t going to be there?”

Blonde Bombshells will be coming to the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough in the summer.

Sheffield Theatres is also coming off the back of a year of celebrations of its 50th anniversary and is also coming off the back of a really quite remarkably successful year. There will be a lot of eyes on the theatre in the coming months as it prepares to stage a new production – the first regional production – of Miss Saigon. Directed by the theatre’s artistic director and associate artistic director Robert Hastie and Anthony Lau. Both smart, impressive directors, they are about to attempt to negotiate not only putting this behemoth of a show on stage, but do so in the face of a lot of negativity. New Earth Theatre, a company of British and South-East Asian artists, announced shortly before Christmas that it would not be bringing a show scheduled for Sheffield to the theatre after hearing about the production of Miss Saigon. In a statement, New Earth Theatre said: “Miss Saigon remains a very contentious musical. The damaging tropes, misogyny and racism inherent in the show completely contradict our values and beliefs. Working alongside a musical that perpetuates deeply held notions of Asian inferiority would impact their wellbeing.”

For their part, the theatre chiefs said: “There is no denying that past versions of this story have provoked strong reactions and feelings. We have approached this new production sensitive to this and believe this is a chance for us to engage in a fresh way.” It is going to be one of the most closely watched productions that opens in the region in the coming months; the verdicts will arrive when it opens July 8 to August 12.

The Crucible will also see a new production from Lau of Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan. The 80th anniversary of the play, which sees three gods search for one honest person to justify humanity’s existence. The newly crowned Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse, formerly the theatre complex’s Studio, will see the premiere of a new play from Eve Leigh. Wildfire Road has an intriguing concept – a hijacked plane is the setting where a group of passengers try to make sense of their situation as the world burns below (March 4-18).

Up by the coast, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre has one of the most intriguing shows, surely, in the region. Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors (More or Less) is a new adaptation by Elizabeth Godber and Nick Lane. A co-production with the recently opened Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot and directed by SJT artistic director Paul Robinson, the play’s usual rivalry between Syracuse and Ephesus is replaced by a – can you guess? – Yorkshire/Lancashire face-off. Including musical numbers, it is sure to be a crowd-pleaser (March 30-April 15). The theatre will also see the return of the 39 Steps (June 30-July 29) and Alan Plater’s Blonde Bombshells of 1943 (August 2-26).

It is, as you can see, what looks set to be yet another exceptional year of theatre for Yorkshire.

Part two of our look ahead to what's coming up in theatre this year