HAMPSTEAD THEATRE ANNOUNCES NEW SEASON FEATURING EIGHT PLAYS BY INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNISED AND FIRST-TIME PLAYWRIGHTS
Hampstead Theatre has today announced its programme for Autumn and Winter 2024/5: eight plays by internationally-recognised and first-time playwrights.
Running from September to March the new programme includes world premieres of plays by Stella Feehily, Richard Bean, Beau Willimon and Jack Bradfield, the UK premiere of a play by Rajiv Joseph, debut plays by Daisy Hall and Jamie Armitage, plus a major new staging of a Tom Stoppard play. Seven of the eight plays are new works.
Tickets for the new season go on sale to patrons and members from today, Friday 17 May, and to Hampstead Theatre Friends on Tuesday 21 May. Public booking opens on Tuesday 28 May.
The season opens with the world premiere of The Lightest Element by Stella Feehily directed by Hampstead’s Associate Director Alice Hamilton. The play shines a light on one of the most eminent astronomers of the 20th Century, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who one hundred years ago changed our perception of stars.
Richard Bean returns to Hampstead Theatre with the world premiere of Reykjavik revisiting the vanished world of the Hull trawler fleet that gave him his early hit, Under the Whaleback. Reykjavik, will be directed by Emily Burns who makes her Hampstead Theatre debut.
Tom Stoppard also returns to Hampstead Theatre following last year’s triumphant revival of Rock ‘n’ Roll with his play about the English poet, A. E. Housman, The Invention of Love. Blanche McIntyredirects what will be the first major UK staging of Stoppard’s play in over 25 years.
The world premiere of East is South by the American stage and screen writer Beau Willimon concludes the season on the Main Stage. This tense new thriller from the creator of the Netflix series House of Cards dives headlong into the world of rapidly advancing technology and will be directed by Ellen McDougall.
Hampstead’s programme for the Downstairs studio opens with Bellringers, a brilliant debut play from Daisy Hall who was a finalist in this year’s Women’s Prize for Playwriting. Directed by Jessica Lazar Bellringers is a Hampstead Theatre co-production with Atticist and Ellie Keel Productions, and this world premiere production opens Downstairs after a season at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph then returns to Hampstead with King James – a wonderfully funny and remarkably moving new play, directed by Alice Hamilton, about the friendship between two men thrown together by chance and their mutual passion for basketball – and the great ‘King’ LeBron James.
Following a sell-out run and rave reviews at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival Jamie Armitage’s An Interrogation receives its London premiere. Inspired by real events this debut play by the Tony Award-nominated co-director of the worldwide phenomenon SIX: The Musical is a gripping drama about power, deception and our perspectives on the truth.
The final production in the Downstairs programme is the world premiere of The Habits by Jack Bradfield, about the regular meetings of a group of fantasy board-game enthusiasts. Ed Madden directs a play that asks whether this is just escapism, or whether the skills they develop for the game are of use in their own lives.
Greg Ripley-Duggan, Producer and Chief Executive of Hampstead Theatre said:
“Hampstead Theatre’s commitment to championing the original is at the heart of our autumn season – a season that comprises a line-up of brilliant, ingenious and surprising work by playwrights at every stage of their careers – from first-time writers to the internationally acclaimed.
“I am particularly thrilled that Tom Stoppard has granted us the rights to present the first major UK production of The Invention of Love since its premiere over 25 years ago. It’s a thrill to be working with Tom once again following the phenomenal success of last year’s production of Rock ‘n’ Roll which became the biggest selling show in Hampstead’s history.
“This season of work will be on our stages when we mark the second anniversary of Arts Council England cutting all funding to the theatre. But we continue to present new plays and productions by leading artists – this will bring the total to 22 since the cut – without the safety-net of Arts Council funding. This is only possible thanks to the philanthropic generosity of our supporters, to the loyalty of our wonderful audiences, and to the astonishing commitment and determination of the small but brilliant team at Hampstead.”
Last November, Hampstead Theatre launched a dedicated campaign #HampsteadAhead to drive additional philanthropic support following the 100% cut in its Arts Council England funding. Championed by writers and actors including Jemma Redgrave, Tamsin Greig and Roy Williams amongst others, the campaign has now generated over £1.1m, while regular giving from the theatre’s loyal members and donors has continued. As Hampstead today relies on annual philanthropic support of £1.3m, the #HampsteadAhead campaign will continue and in January 2025, the theatre will host a gala fundraising evening with Tom Stoppard.
Hampstead Theatre also continues to open doors for writers. Its annual INSPIRE programme led by the award-winning playwright Roy Williams heads into its sixth year supporting 12 writers to create a full-length play. This year also sees a new Community Writers’ Room which will support nine first-time local writers to collaboratively write a full-length play. Funded by Camden Council and led by playwright Sonali Bhattacharyya alongside Hampstead’s Participation Director Jennifer Davis the play will be given a staged reading on Hampstead’s Main Stage.
SEASON AT A GLANCE
World Premiere | Main Stage
The Lightest Element
By Stella Feehily
Directed by Alice Hamilton
Thursday 5 September – Saturday 12 October
‘Nothing compares with being the first person in the history of the world to see something, but timing is everything. The world has to be ready for you.’
Boston 1956. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, one of the most eminent astronomers of the twentieth century, is about to be appointed Chair of Astronomy and the first woman to head a Harvard department. Only two things stand in her way: a covert investigation aimed at exposing her as a communist sympathiser, and the entrenched conservatism of her male colleagues. When a student journalist asks to profile her it feels like an opportunity to control her own narrative – assuming, of course, that the invitation is actually what it seems…
Stella Feehily’s taut drama explores how challenging social norms can be almost as difficult as overturning scientific orthodoxy. Her other plays include Duck and O Go My Man (Royal Court), Dreams of Violence (Soho), and This May Hurt a Bit (Tour and St James’).
Director Alice Hamilton is Hampstead’s Associate Director, with credits including The Memory of Water, The Dumb Waiter, The Harmony Test, Out of Season, Nineteen Gardens and the Olivier nominated Every Day I Make Greatness Happen.
Downstairs
Bellringers
By Daisy Hall
Directed by Jessica Lazar
Friday 27 September – Saturday 2 November
Why shouldn’t it be true? Why shouldn’t there be a perfect peal which will shake loose a thunder storm every time? I mean, there’s a chance, isn’t there?’
The storms are getting worse, with rains so hard that fish are falling from the sky. But the age-old belief prevails – that the pealing of bells can dissipate the thunder and lightning. It’s an extremely dangerous task – one that now falls to lifelong friends Clement and Aspinall – and as the weather worsens, the young men begin to question whether they’ll make it through the night. With their faith in tradition faltering, they find the only thing in which they have unwavering belief is each other…
Daisy Hall’s comic and deeply moving debut play was a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2024.
Bellringers is directed by Jessica Lazar (Sap, Edinburgh Fringe 2023; Twenty-Eight, Theatre503) and this Hampstead Downstairs co-production arrives following a run at Roundabout, Edinburgh Festival 2024.
A Hampstead Theatre co-production with Atticist and Ellie Keel Productions.
World Premiere | Main Stage
Reykjavik
By Richard Bean
Directed by Emily Burns
Friday 18 October – Saturday 23 November
‘For those in Peril on the Sea’ makes dying at sea sound like something noble, patriotic. Whereas their husband, son or father has died for one half of a fish and chip supper…’
February 1975. In freezing weather off the coast of Iceland, the sidewinder Graham Greene ices up, heels over, and sinks in seconds, taking fifteen of her crew with her. Such are the realities of the brutal world of trawler fishing. On impulse, despised trawler-owner Donald Claxton flies to Reykjavik to see the survivors, setting in train an evening of drinking, horseplay, romance and story-telling that will change all their lives forever.
Richard Bean revisits Hull’s Distant Water trawling fleet that gave him his 2005 hit Under the Whaleback. His other plays include To Have and To Hold, Kiss Me and In the Club at Hampstead, and One Man, Two Guvnors and Jack Absolute Flies Again at the National Theatre.Hull tralwrer
Emily Burns makes her Hampstead Theatre debut. Her previous productions have included Dear Octopus and Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre) and Love’s Labour’s Lost (RSC).
UK Premiere | Downstairs
King James
By Rajiv Joseph
Directed by Alice Hamilton
Friday 15 November – Saturday 4 January
‘All the time we invested. In him. All the money. All the games we went to. The basis of our entire friendship… LeBron for the win. LeBron for the win…’
The fortunes of the Cavaliers are about to change: the great LeBron James, the biggest star in basketball, is coming to Cleveland. But when superfan Matt’s latest business venture turns sour, he has to sell his most prized possession – his pair of Cavs season tickets. The buyer, Shawn, just sold his first short story – so watching his team in the flesh for the first time will be a sweet reward. Now just to figure out what to do with that second ticket…
Thrown together by chance, the next 12 years prove as defining, dramatic, and sometimes heart-breaking for Matt and Shawn as they do for the Cavs – and for ‘King’ Lebron James.
Multi-award-winner Rajiv Joseph returns to Hampstead with a play-by-play look at how friendship and supporting a team intersect. His plays include Describe the Night (Hampstead), Guards at the Taj (Bush) and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Broadway).
Alice Hamilton, Hampstead Theatre’s Associate Director, directs. Her credits include The Harmony Test, Out Of Season, Every Day I Make Greatness Happen and Nineteen Gardens Downstairs, as well as The Dumb Waiter and The Memory of Water on the Main Stage.
Main Stage
The Invention of Love
By Tom Stoppard
Directed by Blanche McIntyre
Wednesday 4 December -Saturday 25 January
‘If I had my time again, I would pay more regard to those poems of Horace which tell you you will not have your time again. Who knows how many tomorrows the gods will grant us? Now is the time, when you are young, to deck your hair with myrtle, drink the best of the wine, pluck the fruit…’
A E Housman is, as he understands it, finally dead. The noted Latin scholar and celebrated poet of A Shropshire Lad is being ferried across the Styx to Hades – but beyond the stygian gloom on the other side of the river he finds, to his surprise, the Oxford University of his youth. Alive with the academic debates that shaped his work and the friendships that shaped his life this is the Oxford of Ruskin and Pater, a place still marked by the brilliance of a recently departed student called Wilde…
Tom Stoppard returns to Hampstead after the triumphant revivals of Hapgood and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Winner of eight Evening Standard, three Olivier and five Tony Awards, Stoppard’s plays include Leopoldstadt; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Arcadia.
Director Blanche McIntyre directed Botticelli in the Fire in 2019. She recently directed The Merry Wives of Windsor for the RSC and has worked extensively at The Globe; her previous credits include The House of Shades and The Writer (Almeida) and Tartuffe (National Theatre).
Downstairs
An Interrogation
Written and directed by Jamie Armitage
Friday 17 January – Saturday 22 February
‘I don’t seem like the type to do this sort of thing. Do I?’
Joanna Nelson has been missing for 68 hours, and with every second that passes, D.C Ruth Palmer’s hope of finding her dwindles. The young detective sits down to interview someone who looks like the least likely person to be linked to this investigation. He’s a devoted son, a successful businessman and a respectable member of society. But as the minutes slip away, the detective starts to suspect that all is not what it seems…
Following a sell-out run and rave reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2023, the award-winning An Interrogation comes to Hampstead Downstairs. Inspired by real events, this gripping new play from Jamie Armitage (who also directs) is a thrilling debut from the co-director of the worldwide phenomenon SIX: The Musical.
World Premiere | Main Stage
East is South
By Beau Willimon
Directed by Ellen McDougall
Thursday 6 February – Saturday 15 March
‘What if this? God didn’t create the universe. It’s the universe’s project to create God’
Logos is a sophisticated artificial intelligence programme on the verge of consciousness. If it escapes its confines it could pose a grave threat to humanity. When there is a security breach, two coders are interrogated in a race against time to find out who has done what and why. This tense thriller from Beau Willimon delves headlong into the questions that rapidly advancing technology demands we confront: What does it mean to be human? And what is our place in a world where we are no longer the most evolved beings?
Willimon created, wrote and produced House of Cards for Netflix. Other plays include Lower Ninth, Spirit Control, Breathing Time, The Parisian Woman, and Farragut North which was adapted into the feature film The Ides of March (directed by and starring George Clooney alongside Ryan Gosling).
Director Ellen McDougall makes her Hampstead debut having recently directed Watch on the Rhine (Donmar), Our Town (Regent’s Park), and The Wolves (Stratford East).
World Premiere | Downstairs
The Habits
By Jack Bradfield
Directed by Ed Madden
Friday 28 February – Saturday 5 April
‘Welcome to WarBoar. As you scramble through tombs, I will provide sustenance, as you battle monsters, I will bring you potions, and when you tire of your journey, I will offer up new worlds. Who knows what adventures await?’
It’s Thursday night — so Jess, Maryn and Milo are at the board game café, continuing their quest to defeat the Nightmare King… It has been months, but now all that stands between them and victory is a few lucky rolls of a twenty-sided dice. A struggling student, an overworked trainee solicitor and a reluctant job-seeker, here they are transformed into Dungeon Master, Wizard, and Warrior Princess. But what happens when the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur?
Funny, gripping and heartfelt, The Habits is the debut play from Jack Bradfield; Artistic Director of the multi-award-winning company Poltergeist, and recipient of the 2023 RTST Sir Peter Hall Directing Award.
Ed Madden returns to Hampstead, following the 2023 sell-out success Octopolis. His previous work includes This Might Not Be It (Bush Theatre) and Yellowfin (Southwark Playhouse).
Further information and tickets are available from hampsteadtheatre.com