3 February 2016
Rufus Norris announces the National Theatre’s plans for 2016 and beyond
New work by Lee Hall, David Hare, Bryony Kimmings, Lucy Kirkwood, Nina Raine, Gillian
Slovo and Alexander Zeldin, and contemporary revivals of two of the NT’s most celebrated
20th century premieres – Amadeus and Angels in America – are among the forthcoming
productions at the National Theatre announced today by Rufus Norris.
Jonathan Kent’s Young Chekhov trilogy from Chichester Festival Theatre and Sally
Cookson’s Peter Pan from Bristol Old Vic are among the collaborations with regional and
independent theatre companies, which also include Birmingham Repertory Theatre,
Complicite Associates, HOME Manchester, Out of Joint, National Theatre of Scotland and
Live Theatre.
Leading actors will include Anna Chancellor, Rosalie Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Garfield,
Tamsin Greig, Rory Kinnear, James McArdle, Helen McCrory, Elizabeth McGovern,
Ben Miles, Lucian Msamati, Siân Phillips, Danny Sapani and Geoffrey Streatfeild. Directors
new to the NT include Vicky Featherstone, Robert Icke and Ivo van Hove.
War Horse, Jane Eyre and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time will tour the
UK; National Theatre Connections celebrates its 21st anniversary; National Theatre Live
broadcasts will include the Royal Court’s production of Hangmen; and National Theatre: On
Demand in Schools adds The Comedy of Errors and Treasure Island to the free video
streaming service available on demand in classrooms throughout the UK. Travelex have
renewed their partnership with the National Theatre for a further three years until 2018.
Olivier Theatre
Jonathan Kent’s highly acclaimed Chichester Festival Theatre trilogy, Young Chekhov –
the playwright’s early plays Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull, in new versions by David
Hare – comes to the Olivier Theatre from July, with a press performance on 3 August.
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Anna Chancellor as Arkadina in The Seagull and James McArdle in the title role of
Platonov and as Lvov in Ivanov again lead the ensemble company, joined by Geoffrey
Streatfeild in the title role of Ivanov and as Trigorin in The Seagull; members of the original
cast also include Emma Amos, Pip Carter, Jonathan Coy, Nicholas Day, Peter Egan,
Joshua James, Beverley Klein, Adrian Lukis, Des McAleer, Nina Sosanya and Olivia
Vinall.
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer will open in the Olivier Theatre in October, with Lucian
Msamati as Salieri. Peter Shaffer’s celebrated play had its world premiere at the NT in 1979.
This new production, part of the Travelex £15 Tickets season, will be directed by Michael
Longhurst.
Sally Cookson’s ingenious production of Peter Pan, devised by the original company
based on the works of JM Barrie, will play in the Olivier from November. A co-production
with Bristol Old Vic, where its original production was seen in 2012, Peter Pan follows Sally
Cookson’s acclaimed staging of Jane Eyre, which will tour the UK in 2017 (see below).
Tamsin Greig will return to the National to play ‘Malvolia’ in Twelfth Night, opening in the
Olivier in February 2017: the first of two Shakespearean productions being directed by
Simon Godwin, who will later direct Ralph Fiennes in Antony and Cleopatra early in
2018.
Siân Phillips and Danny Sapani lead the cast of Yaël Farber’s production of Les Blancs
by Lorraine Hansberry, the first of the year’s Travelex £15 Tickets productions, opening in
the Olivier Theatre on 30 March as already announced. The company also includes Sheila
Atim, Gary Beadle, Sidney Cole, Elliot Cowan, James Fleet, Clive Francis, Tunji Kasim,
Anna Madeley, Anna Maria Nabirye, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva and Mark Theodore. The
production is supported by the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater.
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, in a new translation by Simon
Stephens, will be directed by Rufus Norris in the Olivier Theatre from May, also part of the
Travelex £15 Tickets season. Rory Kinnear will play Macheath and the cast will also include
Jamie Beddard, Rosalie Craig and Nick Holder.
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Lyttelton Theatre
The Red Barn, a new play by David Hare based on Georges Simenon’s novel La Main, will
open in the Lyttelton Theatre in October. Directed by Robert Icke, making his NT debut, and
produced in association with Scott Rudin, this will be David Hare’s 17th new play at the
National Theatre.
Ivo van Hove comes to the National for the first time to direct Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler,
opening in December. He previously directed the play at New York Theatre Workshop and at
Toneelgroep Amsterdam, and will remake the production for the NT with British actors.
Helen McCrory will play Hester in Carrie Cracknell’s production of The Deep Blue Sea by
Terence Rattigan in the Lyttelton Theatre, opening on 8 June, reuniting actor and director
following their remarkable Medea in 2014.
Howard Davies directs Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, also in the Lyttelton,
opening on 27 July, with an ensemble cast including Stephen Kennedy, Justine Mitchell
and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor.
Earlier in the year, The Suicide by Suhayla El-Bushra, after Erdman, joins Dominic
Cooke’s production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in the Lyttelton repertoire on 13 April:
another Travelex £15 Tickets production. Set in contemporary Britain and directed by
Nadia Fall, the cast will be led by Javone Prince with Pal Aron, Ayesha Antoine, Nathan
Clarke, Chloe Hesar, Lisa Jackson, Michael Karim, Paul Kaye, Ashley McGuire, Pooky
Quesnel, Sule Rimi, Rebecca Scroggs, Tom Robertson and Lizzie Winkler.
In May 2017, Marianne Elliott will direct Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, with
Andrew Garfield returning to the National as Prior Walter. Millennium Approaches, the first
of the two plays which comprise Kushner’s landmark work, received its British premiere at
the Cottesloe in 1992 in Declan Donnellan’s original production, and was joined by
Perestroika in a double-bill the following year.
Dorfman Theatre
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, Lee Hall’s critically-acclaimed stage adaptation of Alan
Warner’s cult Scottish novel The Sopranos, directed by Vicky Featherstone, receives its
London premiere at the Dorfman in August. The National Theatre of Scotland and Live
Theatre production marks NTS’s return to the National, following the sell-out run of
Rona Munro’s The James Plays, co-produced in 2014 and touring in 2016.
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A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer, book by Bryony Kimmings and Brian Lobel,
music by Tom Parkinson, lyrics by Bryony Kimmings, will be a Complicite Associates coproduction with the National Theatre in association with HOME Manchester. Directed by
Bryony Kimmings, it will open in Manchester at HOME in September and at the Dorfman
Theatre in October.
Love, a new play written and directed by Alexander Zeldin, will be a co-production with
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, opening in the Dorfman in December and at The REP in
January 2017.
Mosquitoes, a new play by Lucy Kirkwood, will be directed by Rufus Norris and
presented by special arrangement with Manhattan Theatre Club, opening in the Dorfman
next January.
A new play by Nina Raine, Consent, will be a co-production with Out of Joint, playing from
April 2017.
As previously announced, Katie Mitchell’s production of Cleansed by Sarah Kane opens
on 23 February; the cast is Graham Butler, Peter Hobday, Natalie Klamar, Tom
Mothersdale, George Taylor, Matthew Tennyson and Michelle Terry.
Annie Baker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Flick, directed by Sam Gold, opens on 19
April, presented in association with Scott Rudin. The cast includes Jaygann Ayeh, Louisa
Krause and Matthew Maher.
Sam Crane, Elizabeth McGovern, Ben Miles and Pippa Nixon will lead the cast of Alexi
Kaye Campbell’s new play, Sunset at the Villa Thalia, directed by Simon Godwin,
opening in the Dorfman on 1 June.
The Dorfman Partner is Neptune Investment Management.
Temporary Theatre
Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State, a piece of verbatim documentary
theatre, written by Gillian Slovo, developed with Nicolas Kent from his original idea, and
directed by Nicolas Kent, will be the final full production in the Temporary Theatre, opening
on 15 April.
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Before then, Graeae Theatre Company’s co-production with Theatre Royal, Plymouth of The
Solid Life of Sugar Water by Jack Thorne, with Genevieve Barr and Arthur Hughes
again directed by Amit Sharma, will run from 26 February – 19 March; and Islington
Community Theatre’s Brainstorm by Ned Glasier, Emily Lim and the company, which
enjoyed a sell-out run earlier this year, returns from 29 March – 2 April.
National Theatre throughout the UK, in the West End and internationally
The Olivier and Tony Award-winning production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time will embark on a second major national tour from January – September 2017.
The West End production continues its run at the Gielgud Theatre, where it is currently
booking until 18 June 2016; American Express is the Preferred Card Partner.
Jane Eyre, a co-production with Bristol Old Vic, will tour the UK from April – August 2017,
following its sell-out run at the National Theatre; it is currently playing in Bristol and visits the
Theatre Royal Nottingham from 9 – 13 February 2016.
A second major UK tour of War Horse will open in Canterbury in September 2017 and then
visit Bristol, Liverpool, Oxford, Brighton, Bradford and Nottingham, coinciding with the
centenary commemorations of the final year of World War One. Its last performance at the
New London Theatre will be on 12 March 2016, by which time it will have played over 3,000
performances and been seen by 2.7 million people in London.
Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places and Things transfers to the West End’s Wyndham’s
Theatre from 15 March, again directed by Jeremy Herrin in a collaboration between
Headlong and the NT. Denise Gough recreates her performance as Emma, for which she
won the 2016 Critics’ Circle Award for Best Actress.
The 21st anniversary of National Theatre Connections this year is being celebrated by 500
youth theatre companies involving 10,000 young people from every corner of the UK,
working with 40 major regional theatres. They are performing twelve plays drawn from the
150 works written by leading playwrights for young people since the festival began, including
Simon Armitage, James Graham, Katori Hall, Jackie Kay, Bryony Lavery and Patrick
Marber. Connections culminates in an extended festival at the NT in late June and early
July, and is supported by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation and Jacqueline and Richard
Worswick.
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Forthcoming National Theatre Live broadcasts include As You Like It from the Olivier
Theatre on 25 February, and the Royal Court Theatre production of Hangmen by Martin
McDonagh from Wyndham’s Theatre on 3 March.
Over 2000 teachers in 1500 schools across the UK are now using the groundbreaking free
video streaming service National Theatre: On Demand in Schools. Schools in 93 different
counties, in towns and cities from Falmouth to Inverness and Omagh to Whitby, are now
able to watch a selection of acclaimed NT productions in their classrooms, on demand. In
September further titles will be added, including Dominic Cooke’s production of The Comedy
of Errors with Lenny Henry, and – expanding the service to include titles for primary schools
– Polly Findlay’s staging of Treasure Island, adapted by Bryony Lavery. Each play is
supported by curriculum-linked learning resources. National Theatre: On Demand in Schools
is delivered in partnership with Frog Education Ltd, and supported by Stavros Niarchos
Foundation and the Sidney E. Frank Foundation. Productions for primary schools are
supported by The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity.
Lenny Henry appointed to NT Board
John Makinson, Chairman of the Board of the NT, announces today that Sir Lenny Henry
has been appointed to the Board. He made his National Theatre debut in The Comedy of
Errors in 2011; his other theatre roles include the title role in Othello for Northern
Broadsides/West Yorkshire Playhouse, which transferred to the West End and for which he
won the 2009 Evening Standard Outstanding Newcomer Award; August Wilson’s Fences in
the West End, for which he received the Critics’ Circle Best Actor Award; and Educating Rita
at Chichester.
Lenny Henry has toured worldwide with his stand-up comedy shows, and has appeared in
and presented innumerable television and radio dramas, comedies and documentaries. The
co-founder of Comic Relief, his many awards include the Lifetime Achievement Award at the
2003 British Comedy Awards and a Golden Rose at the Montreux Television Festival.
Lenny Henry was knighted for his services to drama in 2015 and campaigns for the greater
representation of Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people in the entertainment industry.
Ends
3 February 2016
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Public information: Public booking for The Threepenny Opera, Young Chekhov, The Deep
Blue Sea, The Plough and the Stars and Sunset at the Villa Thalia opens on 3 March; and
for Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State on 4 February.
Further details and press nights for later productions will be announced with each new
booking period.
Book tickets online at www.nationaltheatre.org.uk Box Office: 020 7452 3000.
Twitter: @nationaltheatre #NTupcoming
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/national.theatre.london
For further information please contact the National Theatre press office on
press@nationaltheatre.org.uk or 020 7452 3235.
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