U.K.'s Almeida Announces Sping 2010 Lineup; Features RUINED, Andrew Upton, Indhu Rubasingham and More

The Almeida Theatre in the U.K. has announced their Spring 2010 lineup of productions. 

The schedule features:

Ruined

Indhu Rubasingham will direct Jenny Jules as Mama Nadi and Lucian Msamati as Christian in Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize winning Ruined, previewing at the Almeida from 15 April, with press night on 22 April and booking until 5 June 2010. Designs are by Robert Jones with lighting by OIiver Fenwick, original music by Dominic Kanza and sound by Christopher Shutt. Further casting for Ruined will be announced shortly. Public booking for Ruined opens on 12 November 2009.

A small mining town deep in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Mama Nadi's bar her rules apply. No arguments, no politics, no guns. When two new girls tainted with the stigma of their recent past arrive, Mama is forced to reassess her business priorities and personal loyalties. As tales of local atrocities spread and tensions between rebels and government militia rise, the realities of life in civil war provide the ultimate test of the human spirit.

Ruined, commissioned by the Goodman Theatre Chicago, received its world premiere in their co-production with the Manhattan Theatre Club earlier this year and was, in addition to the Pulitzer, also the recipient of seven Best Play Awards including the New York Critics' Circle Award, two Drama Desk Awards and four OBIE Awards.

Jenny Jules returns to the Almeida having previously performed in Michael Attenborough's productions of The Homecoming and Big White Fog. She has also worked extensively for the Tricycle Theatre in productions including Fabulation, Gem of the Ocean, Walk Hard, The Colour of Justice and The Great White Hope. Her film work includes A Short Stay in Switzerland, Octane, Up ‘N' Under and Spiders and Flies. On television she has been seen in Vexed, Casualty, Judge John Deed, Golden Hour and A Respectable Trade.

Lucian Msamati's theatre credits include Death and The Kings Horseman, The Overwhelming, President of An Empty Room and Mourning Becomes Electra for The National Theatre, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui for the Lyric Hammersmith, Pericles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Walk Hard, Fabulation and Gem Of The Ocean for the Tricycle. He played Sipho in the Almeida's production of Anthony Sher's I.D., directed Nancy Meckler. His television credits include No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, Spooks, Just Like Ronaldinho, Ultimate Force, Too Close for Comfort, The Knock, Heads and Tales. His film work includes The International, Coffin, Legend of the Sky, Kingdom, Dr Juju and Lummumba.

Brooklyn born Lynn Nottage is also the author of the award-winning Intimate Apparel, as well as A Walk Through Time, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Mud River Stone, Por'knockers, Poof! and Las Meninas, all of which have been extensively produced Off-Broadway and regionally in the US. She is a member of New Dramatists and a graduate oF Brown University and the Yale School of Drama. In 2006 Indhu Rubasingham directed Lynn Nottage's Fabulation at the Tricycle Theatre.

Indhu Rubasingham most recently co-directed the acclaimed The Great Game Afghanistan for the Tricycle Theatre. For the Almeida she has directed Another America: Fire - an opera presented as part of the PUSH04 Season, and Chain Play II. Her other theatre credits include Wuthering Heights for Birmingham Rep, Free Outgoing for the Royal Court, Pure Gold for Soho Theatre, Heartbreak House for Watford Palace Theatre, Fabulation and Starstruck for the Tricycle, Yellowman at Hampstead Theatre, Bombay Dreams on which she was Associate Director, Tanika Gupta's Sugar Mummies and Roy Williams' Lift Off and Club Land all for the Royal Court and The Waiting Room by Tanika Gupta for The National Theatre.

Through A Glass Darkly 

Michael Attenborough will direct Andrew Upton's new stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's Through A Glass Darkly. Previewing from 10 June with press night on 16 June and booking until 31 July. Casting and the production team for Through A Glass Darkly will be announced next year. Public booking will open on 12 November 2009.

Karin is a young wife, an older sister and an only daughter. Her kaleidoscopic interior world is a constantly changing picture, where the boundaries between the everyday and the holy defy distinction. Karin's family have taken her on a recuperative holiday. On a bleakly beautiful island where their relationships become increasingly entangled, as the three most important men in her life prove increasingly incapable of helping to cure her, Karin decides to take control of her own destiny.

Earlier this year The Almeida Theatre Company, under the Direction of Michael Attenborough, were invited to take part in the Ingmar Bergman InterNational Theatre Festival at the Dramaten (Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden) in Stockholm, to perform a rehearsed reading of Upton's new adaptation of Through A Glass Darkly. Upton's adaption has subsequently been further developed in readiness for this production, also to be directed by Attenborough.

Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, Through a Glass Darkly was Sweden's contribution to the Venice Biennale in 1962 and in the same year it won the Oscar for best Foreign Language Film. Through A Glass Darkly is the only one of Bergman's films for which he ever gave permission for a stage adaptation.

Andrew Upton's most recent adaptation was The Philistines for The National Theatre, directed by Howard Davies. Upton's first adaptation for the Sydney Theatre Company, where he is currently Co-Artistic Director and Co-CEO with Cate Blanchett, was Cyrano de Bergerac which debuted in 1999 and was reprised at the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2005. His adaptation of Don Juan was produced by the STC in 2001, followed in 2004 by Hedda Gabler which later played at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music in New York. His adaptation of The Cherry Orchard was directed by Howard Davies, also for the STC, in 2005. Upton adapted the Luigi Pirandello play Right You Are (If You Think You Are), which was staged by Francesco Vezzoli at the Guggenheim Museum in New York for a one off ‘performance'.

Swedish film and theatre director, playwright and screenwriter Ingmar Bergman's (1918-2007), films include Smiles of a Summer Night, Scenes from a Marriage, The Magic Flute, Autumn Sonata and the Oscar winning Fanny and Alexander, The Virgin Spring and Through A Glass Darkly. He directed extensively for the stage and was Executive Director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and at the Residenz Theater in Munich.

Michael Attenborough is Artistic Director of The Almeida Theatre where his productions have been The Mercy Seat, Five Gold Rings, Brighton Rock, The Late Henry Moss, Enemies, There Came A Gypsy Riding, Big White Fog, Awake and Sing!, The Homecoming, In a Dark Dark House and When the Rain Stops Falling. In 2007 Attenborough was invited to lead a two week International Shakespeare Workshop in Australia where he worked with a company of multi-national artists. In February 2010 he will direct Shakespeare's Measure for Measure (see below). Previously, he was Associate Director, Mercury Theatre, Colchester (1972-74), Leeds Playhouse (1974-79), Young Vic (1979-80), Artistic Director, Palace Theatre, Watford (1980-84), Artistic Director, Hampstead Theatre (1984-89), Principal Associate Director, Royal Shakespeare Company (1990-2002). On leaving the Royal Shakespeare Company he became an Honorary Associate Artist. Attenborough‘s freelance work includes productions at The National Theatre, the Royal Court, in the West End and on Broadway.

This Almeida production of Through A Glass Darkly is produced in association with Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton, Andrew Higgie, Garry McQuinn and Liz Koops.

Measure for Measure 

Michael Attenborough will direct William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure previewing 12 February, with press night on 18 February and running until 10 April 2010. Designs are by Lez Brotherston with lighting by David Hersey, music by Stephen Warbeck, sound by John Leonard and movement by Imogen Knight. Public booking for Measure for Measure opens 12 November 2009.

Joining the previously announced Rory Kinnear who plays Angelo, Anna Maxwell Martin who plays Isabella and Ben Miles who plays Vincentio the Duke, are David Annen as Provost, Daisy Boulton as Juliet, Flaminia Cinque as Mistress Overdone, Trevor Cooper as Pompey, Emun Elliot as Claudio, David Killick as Escalus, Victoria Lloyd as Marianna, Jessica Tomchak as Francisca and Tony Turner as Elbow.

Set in a Vienna dominated by the sex trade, Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, is a play of political intrigue about moral responsibility, Vincentio, the Duke, seeks to return order to his city. He announces that he is to travel abroad and appoints the strait laced Angelo in his place. Vincentio secretly disguises himself as a friar to keep a watchful eye on the new regime. When Isabella, a novice nun, finds her brother is sentenced to death for a sexual misdemeanour she visits Angelo to beg for his life.

Previously Michael Attenborough has directed Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice as well as Royal Shakespeare Company productions of Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra and Henry IV parts I and II.

Rope

Roger Michell will direct PatRick Hamilton's classic thriller Rope running from 10 December 2009 - 6 February 2010, with press night on 16 December. Designs are by Mark Thompson with lighting by Rick Fisher and sound by John Leonard. Rope will be produced at the Almeida in association with Sonia Friedman Productions. Booking for Rope, sponsored by Aspen Re, is now open.

The cast is Philip Arditti (Sabot), Bertie Carvel (Rupert Cadell), Emma Dewhurst (Mrs Debenham), Michael Elwyn (Sir Johnstone Kentley), Henry Lloyd Hughes (Kenneth Raglan), Blake Ritson (Wyndham Brandon), Alex Waldmann (Charles Granillo) and Pheobe Waller-Bridge (Leila Arden).

The Almeida Theatre is supported by Principal Sponsor Coutts & Co., who is currently in their seventh consecutive year of support. The relationship between Coutts and the Almeida, first established when the newly refurbished theatre reopened in 2003, is a unique collaboration which has developed and flourished over the past seven years. www.coutts.com

For tickets to productions at the Almeida, call 020 7359 4404 (24 hour), or visit www.almeida.co.uk.  Tickets are £32.00 - £8.00. Regular performances are Monday - Saturday at 7.30pm, Saturday matinees at 3pm, Press Nights at 7.00pm.  For more information on performance schedules and ticket purchases, visit www.almeida.co.uk.

 

 

 

 

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