Under new leadership Sheffield's oldest theatre, The Lantern Theatre today announces its first professional season. Artistic Director Martin Derbyshire and Chief Executive Matt Risby also announce their inaugural production for the company, Order. The venue will also host two festivals in 2012, the Shakespeare Festival and the return of the annual New Writing Festival. Plus some of the most exciting live music, dance, family and comedy productions currently on tour in the UK will play at the venue in 2012.

Highlights of the Spring/Summer season include; innovative company Zoo Indigo will bring their interactive multimedia performance Under the Covers to the venue (27 January), combining both the virtual world and the theatre space they create a unique live performance with pre-recorded and live footage.

After entertaining troops in Iraq, March will see the return to The Lantern Theatre of Variety and TV performer Iestyn Edwards with My Tutu's Gone AWOL (1 -3 March). After which new play by award winning Author Berlie Doherty, Thin Air (30 - 31 March), will be presented by Derbyshire's Cottongrass Theatre Company.

Throughout the spring there will be a Shakespeare Festival at the venue; a number of events will celebrate the work of the bard including workshops with Griffin Theatre Arts, presented by Royal Shakespeare Company director Helen Leblique.

The New Writing festival will see award winning theatre and radio playwright Richard Hurford present a workshop on writing for the theatre. Music will also take centre stage with Sheffield vocalist Rosie Brown, she will perform Where Light Falls; Songs About Joni Mitchel (9-10 March) and internationally renowned Senegalese Musician Diabel Cissokho brings his brand of upbeat West African groove playing the Kora (13 April).

Comedy is from Total Theatre Award Winner Bryony Kimmings performing 7 Days Drunk (20 April), a hilarious and moving one-woman show investigating the historical links between artists and mind enhancing drugs. Created solely from material made during a seven-day experiment, in which Bryony was kept in various states of scientific drunkenness.

Artistic Director Martin Derbyshire today said; "I'm absolutely thrilled to present our first professional season as a venue. As the oldest theatre in Sheffield I truly believe that The Lantern Theatre belongs to Sheffield, and has great local significance offering a wide variety of music, theatre and art. I'm particularly excited about our debut production as a company, Order. It is a thrill for me to be part of this new collaboration with Matt Risby, these are exciting times for us and I look forward to engaging with new and diverse audiences through our own work, our festivals and the touring productions in the year ahead."

Chief Executive Matt Risby commented; "I am delighted to be working with The Lantern Theatre as Chief Executive and I'm greatly looking forward to working alongside Martin Derbyshire to lead the organisation, capitalise on the current success of the company and present the theatre's first professional season. Ensuring we offer Sheffield fantastic entertainment in the city's oldest theatre and offer the people of the city an alternative, vibrant centre for the arts'."

Starting the season in January will be Under the Covers by theatre company Zoo Indigo (27 January). In an interactive media performance Zoo Indigo virtually take their babies on tour so they can perform while the audience babysits. Combining autobiography and technology, the performance duo attempt to re-enact the movie star roles they aspire to with help from two flat pack daddies, but the day-to-day-ness of their real lives keeps interrupting. Under the Covers is an intimate, tender and humorous meditation on the way in which artists juggle the work they make with the lives they choose to lead.

Order (23-25 February) will mark the company's first professional debut and is written and directed by Artistic Director Martin Derbyshire and Chief Executive Matt Risby. Obsession. Violence. A love story in two acts. An innocent gesture from one person to another sets in motion a series of increasingly disturbing events. A play about what happens when the line between reality and fantasy become dangerously blurred, Order is a dark, brooding and emotional drama.

Iestyn Edwards returns to The Lantern Theatre with his hilarious production My Tutu's Gone AWOL (1-3 March). As heard by Her Majesty, and on Desert Island Discs, Midweek, Woman's Hour, we follow Edwards in his tutu on Combined Services Entertainment tours through Iraq and Afghanistan in the company of Her Majesty's Finest. Hoiked onto the "Naughty Tank" on base in Iraq for being lippy to Royal Marines Commando 'Stacks', Iestyn had to sing for his supper. In part two Iestyn morphs into Russian Prima Ballerina Madame Galina. Part panto dame, part clown, part stand up; expect mayhem, madness and hilarity. Edwards is a stage and TV writer and performer, published poet and journalist.

Sheffield vocalist Rosie Brown performs Where Light Falls; Songs about Joni Mithcell (9-10 March), this performance sees a new departure for Brown. She has taken her admiration for the song-writing, singing and playing of Joni Mitchell as the inspiration for a show about different aspects of Joni's life and art.

Through the medium of original songs composed with lyricist Mike Jones and guitarist Alejandro Sancho, Brown and her band explore Joni's life and career - from her paintings to her collaboration with Charles Mingus. Brown came to Sheffield to study English and Drama at The University of Sheffield, and began singing whilst a student there.

She started to act in plays, but found she was more comfortable delivering songs than prose. Her earliest public performances were at Sheffield's Casablanca club, a proving ground for many Sheffield musicians. Well established on the UK jazz circuit Rosie Brown has also appeared at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival and in New York. Brown's repertoire ranges from latin standards delivered in faultless Portuguese and Spanish to interpretations of Neil Young and original compositions.

Thin Air (30-31 March) is a new play by award winning author Berlie Doherty presented by Cottongrass Theatre Company. This haunting family saga is a tale of ambition, secrets and passion unspent. A young man's dream of flight has ghostly consequences.

A pilot returns home from the horrors of the First World War. He is in possession of a secret that will haunt his community for generations to come. Berlie Doherty is an English novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter.

She is best known for her children's books, for which she has twice won the Carnegie Medal. Her other works include novels for adults, plays for theatre and radio, television series and libretti for children's opera. Cotton Grass Theatre Company was founded in 1995 by Susan Daniel to establish a professional theatre company, in the Peak District of Derbyshire, which could be accessible to the whole community.

The Shakespeare Festival will see a variety of events to celebrate the work of the bard throughout spring at The Lantern Theatre. Griffin Theatre Arts will present Shakespeare in Performance Workshop (29 January), Helen Leblique RSC Director and Griffin Theatre Arts' Associate delivers a practical workshop for adults.

Exploring key exercises and approaches to Shakespeare's texts used by the RSC's professional ensemble. The company will also present Shakespeare in a Week: Comedy of Errors, Participants aged 14-18 will work over the week to create a whirlwind version of one of Shakespeare's funniest plays, Comedy of Errors.

Participants will develop performance and confidence skills, and experience professional rehearsal techniques. The DGP (Dilys Guite Players) will present Shakespeare: Method in the Madness (8-11 February) DGP presents a selection of The Bard's most iconic scenes, wildly reimagined.

As part of the festival the film Looking for Richard will be shown (15 February), Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of Richard III.

The New Writing festival will host a number of events including Writing for Theatre - a practical workshop by Richard Hurford. Hurford is an award-winning British theatre and radio playwright. Richard has worked as Writer-in-Residence with Pilot Theatre Company and Associate Writer for Sheffield Theatres.

He has written many plays for children and young people and worked extensively as a dramaturg and mentor of theatre and radio writing projects for young people, developing new scripts and writers.

After a 3-year hiatus, Sheffield's premier spoken word night Words Aloud returns for creative writers. This is an opportunity for local theatre enthusiasts to showcase themselves within 3 minutes on the Lantern Stage.

All proceeds go to the Roundabout Homeless hostel refurbishment.

Tickets for the season are on sale now and are available by contacting the Box Office 0114 255 1776 or online www.lanterntheatre.org.uk