Also announced today is the West End transfer of Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III to the Wyndham’s Theatre in September.
The Young Friends of The Almeida will present Last Words You’ll Hear, directed by Almeida Director-in-Residence, Whitney Mosery, at the Latitude Festival in July.
King Charles III will be the fourth production to transfer from the Almeida within the last year. Chimerica played to sell-out audiences at the Harold Pinter Theatre, Richard Eyre’s Olivier Award-winning Ghosts played at the Trafalgar Studios from last December and Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s acclaimed production of 1984, currently playing at the Playhouse Theatre, has just extended its run by five weeks until 23 August.
THE SEASON…
World Premiere
LITTLE REVOLUTION
26 August – 4 OctoberPress performances 3 September – 4pm and 7pm
In the summer of 2011, London was burning. Alecky Blythe took her Dictaphone to the streets.
After the ground-breaking London Road (National Theatre), Alecky Blythe returns with a new play about the 2011 Riots. For this world premiere production, she is reunited with director Joe Hill-Gibbins following their acclaimed production of The Girlfriend Experience (Young Vic/ Royal Court/ Drum Theatre Plymouth).
Little Revolution will be designed by Ian MacNeil, with costumes by Holly Waddington, lighting design by Guy Hoare and sound design by Paul Arditti.
The production will include a community chorus recruited from Islington and Hackney by the Almeida Projects Team. They will perform alongside a professional company. Casting is to be announced.
Playwright and screenwriter Alecky Blythe won a Time Out Award for her first play Come Out Eli. In 2003, she set up Recorded Delivery (Verbatim Theatre Company). In 2009, her production of The Girlfriend Experience transferred from the Royal Court to the Young Vic, and in 2010 Do We Look Like Refugees? won a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival. London Road, which she co-authored with composer Adam Cork, won Best Musical at the Critics' Circle Awards and was revived in 2012 at the National Theatre in the Olivier after its sell-out run in the Cottesloe in 2011. She is currently adapting London Road for film with BBC Films and Cuba Pictures. Alecky was also involved in Headlong's Decade, and wrote and co-directed The Riots; In their Words, a drama documentary for BBC2. Her most recent play Where Have I Been All My Life? was produced at the New Vic Theatre in April 2012.
Joe Hill-Gibbins’ recent work includes Powder Her Face for ENO and Edward II at the National Theatre. His work for the Young Vic, where he is an Associate Artist, includes The Changeling, The Glass Menagerie, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Respectable Wedding and short film Bed Trick, which he also co-wrote. He last collaborated with Alecky Blythe on The Girlfriend Experience for the Young Vic and Royal Court/Drum Theatre Plymouth. His work at the Royal Court includes The Village Bike, Bliss, Family Plays and A Girl in a Car With a Man. He was the 2002 winner of the James Menzies-Kitchin Trust Young Director’s Award with his production of A Thought in Three Parts at BAC.
OUR TOWN
by Thornton Wilder
9 October – 29 NovemberPress Night 17 October
We grow-up, we fall in love, we have families and we die. That is our story.
Performed on a bare stage with minimal props, two people fall in love, marry, and live out their lives as a small American town becomes an allegory for everyday life.
Award-winning US actor-director David Cromer directs this intimate, stripped back version of Wilder’s iconic American play. Cromer’s acclaimed production of Our Town ran for over a year at the Barrow Theatre in New York where it won multiple awards. It was subsequently revived in Los Angeles and Boston. With Cromer reprising his role as Stage Manager, this will be the UK premiere of his definitive version of Wilder’s classic.
Our Town will be designed by Michele Spadaro and Stephen Dobay, with costumes by Alison Siple, music byJonathan Mastro and lighting by Heather Gilbert. The Associate Director will be Michael Padden.
David Cromer is the 2010 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. His recent productions include Women or Nothingat The Atlantic, Nikolai and the Others at Lincoln Center, Really Really at MCC in NYC (starring Zosia Mamet),Sweet Bird of Youth (starring Diane Lane) at the Goodman Theater (Chicago), Tribes at Barrow Street in NYC,House of Blue Leaves on Broadway (starring Ben Stiller) and Brighton Beach Memoirs on Broadway. Cromer’s work has garnered multiple awards throughout the US, working with companies such as Steppenwolf Theatre and Big Game Theatre. He is also an acclaimed actor and is currently appearing with Denzel Washington on Broadway in A Raisin In The Sun.
Influential American novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder lived from 1897-1975. He won three Pulitzer Prizes - for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth and the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. In 1968, his novelThe Eighth Day received the National Book Award. Wilder’s play Matchmaker ran on Broadway from 1955-1957, and was later adapted into the musical Hello, Dolly!
Tickets for the two new productions will go on sale to Almeida Members on 28 May and to the general public on 6 June. Tickets for King Charles III at Wyndham’s Theatre will go on sale exclusively through the Almeida Box Office on 28 May and on general sale on 6 June.
Box Office 020 7359 4404 (10am – 7.30pm)
Online almeida.co.uk
