NATIONAL THEATRE: NEW PRODUCTIONS, FEBRUARY - AUGUST2016
YOUNG CHEKHOV- Platonov,Ivanov and The Seagullby Anton Chekhov, in new versions by David Hare and directed by Jonathan Kent transfers from Chichester Festival Theatre
Helen McCrory plays Hester Collyer in THE DEEP BLUE SEA by Terence Rattigan directed by Carrie Cracknell
Sean O’Casey’s THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS is directed by Howard Davies
A new play by Alexi Kaye Campbell, SUNSET AT THE VILLA THALIA, is directed by Simon Godwin
In the Travelex £15 Tickets season:
Rory Kinnear in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s THE THREEPENNY OPERA in a new translation by Simon Stephens directed by Rufus Norris
In the Temporary Theatre:
ANOTHER WORLD: LOSING OUR CHILDREN TO ISLAMIC STATE, written by Gillian Slovo, is directed by Nicolas Kent
National Theatre LivebroadcastsAs You Like Itfrom the NT and the Royal Court Theatre production of Hangmen
Platforms, Lyttelton Lounge, and CloreLearning Centre events, courses and talks
THE THREEPENNY OPERATravelex £15 Tickets, Olivier Theatre Previews from 18 May, press night 26 May, booking until 31 August with further performances to be announced.
THE THREEPENNY OPERAby Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in a new adaptation by Simon Stephens will be directed by Rufus Norris, opening in the Olivier Theatre on 26 May as part of the £15 Travelex season. The cast includes Jamie Beddard, Rosalie Craig, Nick Holder and Rory Kinnear. The production will be designed by Vicki Mortimer, with musical direction by David Shrubsole, choreography by Imogen Knight, lighting by Paule Constable, sound by Paul Arditti and fight direction by Rachel Bown Williams and Ruth Cooper of RC-ANNIE Ltd.
London scrubs up for the coronation. The thieves are on the make, the whores on the pull, the police cutting deals to keep it all out of sight. Mr and Mrs Peachum are looking forward to a bumper day in the beggary business but their daughter didn’t come home last night.
Mack the Knife is back in town.
A landmark 20th century musical theatre THE THREEPENNY OPERAcomes to the NT in a bold new production which will contain filthy language and immoral behaviour.
Rufus Norris became Director of the National Theatre in 2015; his NT productions are wonder.land, Everyman, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, The Amen Corner, Table, London Road,Death and the King's Horseman andMarket Boy. His other work includes; Feast,Vernon God Little andTintinfor the Young Vic;theOlivier Award-winning Cabaretin the West End and on tour; Les Liaisons Dangereuseson Broadway;Festenat the Almeida, West End and New York; andDoctor Dee at the Manchester Festival in 2011 and ENO in 2012. Screen work includes Broken, which won the British Independent Film Award for Best Film, and the film of London Road.
Simon Stephens’ plays include Birdland, Wastwater, Motortown, Country Music, Herons, and Bluebird (Royal Court); Blindsided (Manchester Royal Exchange); Seawall (National Theatre/Paines Plough); Three Kingdoms (Lyric/NO99 Theatre, Estonia/Munich Playhouse, Germany); A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky (Lyric Hammersmith); Marine Parade (with MarkEitzel, Brighton Festival); The Trial of Ubu (Hampstead/ Toneelgroep,Amsterdam); T5 and Heaven (Traverse); Punk Rock (Lyric / ManchesterRoyal Exchange); Sea Wall (Bush/Traverse); Harper Regan (National); Pornography (Tricycle/Traverse/DeutschesSchauspielhaus, Hanover); On the Shore of the Wide World (National/Manchester RoyalExchange – Olivier Award for Best New Play); Port (National Theatre/Manchester Royal Exchange) and Carmen Disruption (Deutsche Schauspielhaus, Hamburg). Adaptations include A Doll’s House and I Am the Wind (Young Vic).
Rory Kinnear’s appearances at the NT include Iago in Othello (for which he won an Olivier Award ), The Last of the Haussmans, the title role in Hamlet (Olivier Award nomination), Burnt by the Sun (Olivier Award nomination), The Revenger’s Tragedy, Philistines, The Man of Mode (Olivier Award and Winner of the 2007 Ian Charleson Award) and Southwark Fair. He won the Evening Standard Best Actor Award (alongside Adrian Lester) for Othello and Hamlet at the NTand Measure for Measure at the Almeida. His film appearancesinclude the three most recent Bond films, The Imitation Game and Broken (BIFA Award, Best Supporting Actor).
Press night: Thursday 26 May
Contact: Martin Shippen on 020 7452 3233 /
The Chichester Festival Theatre productions
YOUNG CHEKHOV OlivierTheatre
Previews from 14 July, press day 3 August, booking until 3 September with further performances to be announced.
The YOUNG CHEKHOVtrilogy opened to overwhelming acclaim at Chichester Festival
Theatre last year. The company now come to the National, offering a unique chance to explore the birth of a revolutionary dramatic voice. The production is directed by Jonathan Kent, with set designs by Tom Pye, costumes by Emma Ryott, lighting by Mark Henderson, music by Jonathan Dove, sound by Paul Groothuisand fight direction by Paul Benzing. Performed by one ensemble of actors, each playcan be seen as a single performance over different days or as a thrilling all-day theatrical experience. Cast includes Emma Amos, Pip Carter, Anna Chancellor, Jonathan Coy, Mark Donald, Peter Egan, Col Farrell, Beverley Klein, Adrian Lukis, Des McAleer, James McArdle, Mark Penfold, Nina Sosanya, Geoffrey Streatfeild, Sarah Twomey, David Verrey, Olivia Vinall and Jade Williams.
David Hare has written over thirty original plays, including The Power of Yes,Gethsemane,Stuff Happens, The Permanent Way (a co-production with Out of Joint), Amy’s View, Skylight, The Secret Rapture, The Absence of War, Murmuring Judges, Racing Demon, Pravda (written with Howard Brenton) and Plenty for the National Theatre. His other work includes South Downs (Chichester Festival Theatre and West End),The Judas Kiss (Hampstead and West End)andThe Moderate Soprano (Hampstead). His adaptations include Behind the Beautiful Foreversand The House of Bernarda Alba at the NT, The Blue Room (Donmar and Broadway)andThe Master Builder(The Old Vic).
Jonathan Kent’s productions for the NT include Emperor and Galilean,Oedipus and The False Servant. Previous productions at Chichester Festival Theatre include Gypsy (also West End) A Month in the Country, Sweeney Todd and Private Lives (also West End). As joint artistic director, with Ian McDiarmid, of the Almeida Theatre for over ten years, his productions included Ivanov,The Tempest, Medea (also West End and Broadway), Richard II and Coriolanus (Almeida at Gainsborough Studios), Phèdre, Britannicusand Plenty (Almeida at the Albery Theatre) and Lulu, Platonov and King Lear (Almeida at King’s Cross). In 2008 he directed Marguerite, The Sea and The Country Wife at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.
Platonov
Schoolteacher Mikhail Platonov has a problem – he’s irresistible to women. Set in the blazing heat of a rural summer, this freewheeling comedy is a cry of youthful defiance against the compromises of middle age. Previews from 14 July, press day 30 July.
Ivanov
Nikolai Ivanov is only 35, a radical and a romantic, but already he’s feeling that he’s thrown his life away. Determined not to become a small-town Hamlet, he hopes one last desperate romance may save him from a society rotten with anti-Semitism and drink. This electric play is powered both byhilarious satire and passionate self-disgust.Previews from 19 July, press day 30 July.
The Seagull
On a summer’s day in a makeshift theatre by a lake, Konstantin’s cutting-edge new play is performed, changing the lives of everyone involved forever. Chekhov’s masterly meditation on how the old take revenge on the young is both comic and tragic, and marks the birth of the modern stage. Previews from 23 July, press day 3 August.
Contact: Mary Parker on 020 7452 3234 /
THE DEEP BLUE SEALyttelton Theatre
Previews from 1 June, press night8 June, booking until 17 August with further performances to be announced.
Carrie Cracknell directs Terence Rattigan’s THE DEEP BLUE SEA, opening on 8 June in the Lyttelton Theatre. Helen McCrory plays Hester Collyer. The production will have set designs by Tom Scutt, lighting by Guy Hoare, music by Stuart Earl, sound by Peter Rice and movement direction by Polly Bennett.
Helen McCrory and Carrie Cracknell reunite following the acclaimed Medeain 2014.
A flat in Ladbroke Grove, West London. 1952. When Hester Collyer is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court Judge begins to emerge. With it comes a portrait of need, loneliness and long-repressed passion. Behind the fragile veneer of post-war civility burns a brutal sense of loss and longing.
Terence Rattigan was one of the most influential playwrights of the mid-20th century. His plays included The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, Separate Tables, Flare Path and After the Dance which was produced at the NT in 2011 (Olivier award for best revival). He is still the only playwright who has had two straight plays run for over a thousand performances in London’s West End simultaneously.
Helen McCrory’s theatre work includes Medea, The Last of the Haussmans,Blood Wedding and The Seagull for the NT; The Late Middle Classes, Old Times, Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya (Donmar Warehouse) and As You Like It (West End). Her extensive film and television work includes Skyfall, Hugo, Leaving, A Little Chaos, Peaky Blinders, Penny Dreadful, The Queen, Harry Potter, Street Life (RTS and Monte Carlo Best Actress Awards), Anna Karenina, The Jury and North Square (Critics’ Circle Award).
Carrie Cracknell’srecent work includes Medea and Blurred Lines (NT), Macbethand A Doll’s House (Young Vic, West End and New York) and Wozzeck(ENO). She is Associate Director at the Royal Court Theatre and an Associate Artist at the Young Vic, and was previously Artistic Director of The Gate Theatre.
Press night: Wednesday 8 June
Contact: Mary Parker on 020 7452 3234 /
THE PLOUGH AND THE STARSLyttelton Theatre
Previews from 20 July, press night 27 July, booking until 27 August with additional performances to be announced
THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS by Sean O’Casey will open at the Lyttelton Theatre on 27 July as part of the Travelex £15 tickets season. Directed by Howard Davies and designed by Vicki Mortimer, with lighting by James Farncombe, music by Stephen Warbeck and sound design by Paul Groothuis, the cast includes Stephen Kennedy, Justine Mitchell and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor.
From November 1915 to Easter1916, as the rebellion builds to a climax half a mile away, the disparate residents of a Dublin tenement go about their lives, peripheral to Ireland’s history.
Sean O’Casey places a fixed lens to watch, mercilessly objective, as a dozen vivid characters come and go – selfless, hilarious and desperate by turns - while the heroic myth of Ireland is fought over elsewhere.
To mark the centenary of the Easter Rising, Howard Davies, who memorably brought O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie to the NT stage in 2014, now tackles his greatest play. Davies’ previous work at the NT includesChildren of the Sun,The Last of the Haussmans,The Cherry Orchard, Blood and Gifts, The White Guard (Evening Standard Award for Best Director), Burnt by the Sun, Gethsemane, Her Naked Skin, Never So Good, Philistines,The Life of Galileo and Mourning Becomes Electra.
Press night: Wednesday 27 July
Contact: Martin Shippen on 020 7452 3233 /
SUNSET AT THE VILLA THALIADorfman Theatre
Previews from 25 May, press night 1 June, playing in repertoire until 4 August.
SUNSET AT THE VILLA THALIA, by Alexi Kaye Campbell and directed by Simon Godwin, opens in the Dorfman Theatre on 1 June. The production is designed by Hildegard Bechtler, with lighting by Natasha Chivers, music by Michael Bruce, movement direction by Jonathan Goddard and sound design by Tom Gibbons. The cast includes Christos Callow, Sam Crane, GlykeriaDimou, Elizabeth McGovern, Ben Miles, Pippa Nixon and Eve Polycarpou.
April 1967: Greece is in political turmoil. Charlotte and Theo have retreated to a small island in search of peace and inspiration. But when they meet a charismatic American couple at the port they are seduced into making choices with devastating consequences. This funny and passionate new play by Alexi Kaye Campbell (Woman in Gold, The Pride, Apologia) spans a decade as it explores the impact of foreign influence, planned and unintentional, on a nation and its people.
Sam Crane’s previous theatre credits include DNA, The Miracle and The Odyssey(National Theatre), Farinelli and the King (Shakespeare’s Globe/ West End)and Headlong’s1984 (Playhouse Theatre/ West End).
Elizabeth McGovern was nominated for an Emmy award and Golden Globe award for her role as Cora Crawley in Downton Abbey. Her film credits include Ordinary People and Ragtime, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her most recent theatre credits in the UK include The Shawl (Arcola), Complicit (The Old Vic) and Aristo (Chichester Festival Theatre).
Ben Miles was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (RSC/ West End/ Broadway). Other recent theatre credits include Love LoveLove(Royal Court), Measure for Measure (Almeida Theatre) and The Norman Conquests (The Old Vic/ Broadway). His television and theatre credits include The Woman in Gold, The Crown (Netflix)and The Hollow Crown (BBC).
Pippa Nixon has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company (most recent credits include The Tempest,As You Like It, Hamlet and King John) and Shakespeare’s Globe (most recently A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Timon of Athens and The Merchant of Venice, for which she was nominated for an Ian Charleson Award). Her television credits include Cuffs (BBC) and Unforgotten (ITV).
The Dorfman Partner is Neptune Investment Management.
Press night: Thursday 26 May
Contact: Emma Hardy on 020 7452 3231 /
THE FLICKDorfman Theatre
Previews from 13 April, press night 19 April, final performance 15 June.
Annie Baker’s play THEFLICK arrives at the National Theatre direct from New York, where it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and the Obie Award for Playwriting. The production is directed by Sam Gold, with design by David Zinn, lighting by Jane Cox and sound by Brady Poor, with associate lighting by Isabella Byrd, THE FLICK is produced in association with Scott Rudin and is currently playing at the Barrow Street Theatre, New York, having originally been produced by Playwrights Horizons.
In a run-down movie theatre in central Massachusetts, three underpaid employees mop the floors and attend to one of the last 35-millimetre film projectors in the state. Their tiny battles and not-so-tiny heartbreaks play out in the empty aisles, becoming more gripping than the lacklustre, second-run movies on screen.
With keen insight and a finely-tuned comic eye, THE FLICK is a hilarious and heart-rending cry for authenticity in a fast-changing world.
The cast includes Matthew Maher and Louisa Krause, who will reprise the roles of Sam and Rose created for the Barrow Street Theatre, New York City. They will be joined by JaygannAyeh in the role of Avery.
Annie Baker’s other plays include John (currently running at the Signature Theatre, New York), Circle Mirror Transformation and The Aliens (which jointly won the Obie Award for Best New American Play), and an adaptation of Uncle Vanya. All were directed by Sam Gold, who recently won a Tony Award for his direction of the Broadway musical Fun Home; his other work includes The Real Thing, The Realistic Joneses, The Village Bike and Look Back in Anger.
The Dorfman Partner is Neptune Investment Management.
Press night: Tuesday 19 April
Contact: Emma Hardy on 020 7452 3231 /
ANOTHER WORLD; LOSING OUR CHILDREN TO ISLAMIC STATE Temporary Theatre
Previews from 9 April, press night 15 April, playing until 7 May.
ANOTHER WORLD; LOSING OUR CHILDREN TO ISLAMIC STATE, a piece of verbatim documentary theatre, written by Gillian Slovo and developed with Nicolas Kent from his original idea, will run in the National’s Temporary Theatre from 9 April.Design is by Lucy Sierra, lighting design by Matthew Eagland, video design by Duncan McLean and sound design by Mike Winship. The cast includes Nathalie Armin, Zara Azam, Gunnar Cauthery, Jack Ellis, Nabil Elouahabi, RonakPatani, Gary Pillai, FarshidRokey, SirineSaba, Lara Sawalha, Phaldut Sharma and Tim Woodward.
Over the last twelve months, headlines have been dominated by the growth of Islamic State, and terror attacks claimed by IS have spread across the world. What is the entity that calls itself Islamic State? Why are some young Muslim men and women from across Western Europe leaving their homes to answer the call of Jihad? And what should we do about it?