Hampstead Theatre's new season signals a fresh commitment to staging new writing, with four world premieres and one UK premiere.
Running from March to August, the season includes work by Oscar winning writer Christopher Hampton, and Pulitzer prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis, with the opening show by April de Angelis.
The Divine Mrs S is an hilarious backstage comedy about the 'Queen of Drury Lane' Sarah Siddons and the origins of celebrity.
Following his final season at the Donmar Warehouse, Michael Longhurst returns to the Eton Avenue venue to direct the UK premiere of Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize winner Between Riverside and Crazy.
Ex-cop Walter ‘Pops’ Washington has filled his palatial rent-controlled apartment in one of Manhattan’s most desirable areas with an oddball extended family of petty criminals. Now he’s besieged by the landlords, who want him out, the NYPD, who want him to settle his lawsuit, and the ladies from the local church, who want to save his soul.
Christopher Hampton, whose screenplays include Dangerous Liaisons, Atonement and The Father, adapts a short story by Stefan Zweig in Visit from an Unknown Woman.
Set in Vienna in 1934, it follows Stefan, a feted writer living the life of a wealthy playboy. But the rise of the Nazi Party, and the sudden appearance of a woman who he clearly knows, but cannot for the life of him remember, threaten his idyllic life.
In Hampstead's downstairs space there's a new comedy by Olivier Award-winner Richard Nelson. An Actor Convalescing In Devon, is written for and performed by Paul Jesson as an actor who boards a train to Waterloo for a weekend with an old friend and takes us on a journey through his stories, friends, career, and the healing power of theatre.
There's also the debut play by Sarah Power, an alumnus of Hampstead Theatre’s INSPIRE 2022 programme for emerging playwrights. Grud follows two nerdy sixth formers who befriend each other in their school physics club.
Richard Molloy's follow up to his Olivier-nominated Every Day I Make Greatness Happen at Hampstead Theatre is The Harmony Test, a comedy about long-term empty nesters Charli and Naomi, trying to start a family without ending their marriage.
The season is a further statement of intent after last year's shock announcement of a 100 per cent cut to the theatre's Arts Council grant.
Chief executive Greg Ripley-Duggan said: "We’re thrilled that, as we approach the end of our first year without government subsidy, we can still offer such a rich and varied programme of new plays for our audiences.
“Taking the Main Stage and Downstairs together, we start with a celebration of acting and the art of the theatre through contrasting plays by April De Angelis and Richard Nelson. Stephen Adly Guirgis’ and Richard Molloy’s brilliant plays then offer complementary views of contemporary life, before the building celebrates work created at different ends of writing careers, via riveting pieces from debutant Sarah Power and veteran playwright Christopher Hampton.
"Hampstead’s aim has always been to present outstanding new plays and champion original talent and so it is wonderful that we are able to continue with that in our Spring 2024 programme."
Hampstead Theatre's season runs from March 22 to August 3 and goes on sale to the public on November 30.
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