Jez Butterworth's JERUSALEM Will Return Next Year, Led By Original Star Mark Rylance

It has been announced that Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem will return next year. The production will star the play's original lead, Mark Rylance, in the role of Johnny 'Rooster' Byron!

The production will be directed by Ian Rickson.

No further details, or a venue, have been revealed, but the production was announced by Sonia Friedman Productions on Twitter.

Jerusalem first opened in the Jerwood Theatre of The Royal Court Theatre in London in 2009. The production starred Mark Rylance as Johnny "Rooster" Byron and Mackenzie Crook as Ginger. Jerusalem later played Broadway's Music Box Theatre, also starring Rylance and Crook, in the summer of 2011.

In the woods of South West England, Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, former daredevil motorcyclist and modern-day Pied Piper, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants to be taken to the country fair, a stepfather wants to give him a serious kicking and a motley crew of friends wants his ample supply of drugs and alcohol.

Mark Rylance is an award-winning actor in theatre, film and television. He won raves earlier this season for his performance as Valere in David Hirson's La Bête, on Broadway and in the West End, directed by Matthew Warchus. He won the 2008 Tony Award and Drama Desk for Best Actor in a Play and a Theatre World Award for his New York stage debut as Robert In Boeing-Boeing. He is a two-time winner of the Olivier Award for Johnny 'Rooster' Byron in Jerusalem (2010) and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (1993). He also won the 2010 Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Jerusalem. Rylance was the Artistic Director for Shakespeare's Globe from 1996 to 2005 and also served as an Associate Actor of the RSC, acting in 48 plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Rylance's breakthrough role was Hamlet, which he played first at the Little Theatre of Milwaukee, followed by productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, A.R.T. in Cambridge and the Globe, amassing more performances in the role than any other actor in history, to date. His extensive theatre credits include Hamm in Endgame (Complicite, Duchess Theatre, West End); Peer Gynt in Peer Gynt (Guthrie); Macbeth in Macbeth (Phoebus Cart, Greenwich, UK Tour); Lee and Austin in True West (Donmar, West Yorkshire); Touchstone in As You Like It and Henry V in Henry V (Theatre for a New Audience); Constantine in The Seagull (A.R.T.); Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (RSC, UK Tour); Henry in Life x 3 (Royal National Theatre, Old Vic); Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Royal Opera); Valentin in The Kiss of the Spider Woman (Bush Theatre); Peter Pan in Peter Pan, Ariel in The Tempest, Lucentio in Taming of the Shrew, Michael in Arden of Faversham (RSC); among others. His credits at Shakespeare's Globe included Richard II in Richard II, Henry V in Henry V, Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice, Proteus in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Olivia in Twelfth Night, for which he received a 2002 Evening Standard Award. He is Co-Artistic Director for Phoebus CArt Theatre Company and the London Theatre of Imagination.