Almeida Theatre Announces Fall/Winter Season

The Almeida will present 16 performances only of Sam Shepard's latest play KICKING A DEAD HORSE.  Following a run at The Public Theater in New York, this Abbey Theatre, Dublin production is directed by the author and stars Stephen Rea. Designs are by Brien Vahey with lighting by John Comiskey and costume design by Joan Bergin.  KICKING A DEAD HORSE will run from 5 – 20 September with press night on 10 September.  

Sam Shepard's new play KICKING A DEAD HORSE is the story of Hobart Struther, a wealthy Manhattan art dealer, who has ditched his shiny city life in search of authenticity in the modern-day wild west.  Shepard's play received its world premiere at The Abbey Theatre, Dublin last year and will have a New York run at The Public Theatre in June.  

Sam Shepard has written over 45 plays - including Simpatico, True West, Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind - eleven of which have won Obie Awards.  As an actor he has appeared in numerous films, including The Right Stuff for which he was nominated for an Oscar, as well as more recently The Accidental Husband and The Assassination of Jesse James.  His other awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Buried Child and the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Paris, Texas.  Michael Attenborough's critically acclaimed production of Shepard's The Late Henry Moss was presented by the Almeida in 2006 in its European premiere.

Academy Award nominated Stephen Rea has had a distinguished career spanning film, theatre and television. He has performed extensively at The National Theatre, Hampstead Theatre and the Royal Court as well as Dublin's Gate Theatre and Field Day Theatre Company, which he helped to establish in 1980.  In London he was most recently seen in Harold Pinter's Celebration at the Albery Theatre marking the author's 75th birthday.  In 2004 Rea received honorary degrees from the Universities of Belfast and Ulster for his contribution to theatre and the performing arts.  His many feature film credits include The Crying Game, Pret-a-Porter, Michael Collins, The Butcher Boy, The End of the Affair, V for Vendetta, Breakfast on Pluto and most recently, Jumper.  In 2007 he appeared on BBC 4 in Michael Frayn's Copenhagen and also on C4 in Harold Pinter's Celebration.

Samuel West will direct Harley Granville Barker's WASTE, which runs at the Almeida from 25 September – 15 November 2008, with press night on 2 October.   Casting for WASTE will be announced shortly.

Radical independent politician Henry Trebell is persuaded to join the Conservative Party in order to champion his Bill to Disestablish the Church of England and to use its funds to finance a vast education programme.  But a liaison with a married woman, who dies after aborting their child, brings private scandal into the political arena.  Written in 1907 but banned by the Lord Chamberlain, Waste received its first production almost thirty year's later in 1936 at the Westminster Theatre.

Samuel West's directing credits include The Romans In Britain, Insignificance and As You Like It for Sheffield Theatres where he was Artistic Director.  His production of Patrick Marber's Dealer's Choice recently completed a run at the Trafalgar Studios following its opening at the Menier Chocolate Factory.  He directed Cosi Fan Tutte for the English National Opera and Three Woman and a Piano Tuner for the Minerva Theatre and Hampstead Theatre.  As an actor his extensive work on stage includes Betrayal for the Donmar Warehouse, A Number and Much Ado About Nothing for Sheffield Theatres, Doctor Faustus and The Master and Margarita for Chichester Festival Theatre, the title roles in Hamlet and Richard II both directed by Stephen Pimlott for the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Sea and Arcadia for The National Theatre.  His many screen credits include Iris, Jane Eyre and Persuasion and on television his credits include Margaret Thatcher:  The Long Walk to Finchley, Foyles War and Cambridge Spies.

Actor, producer, director, dramatist and Shakespearean scholar Harley Granville Barker was born in London in 1877 and died in Paris in 1946.  In the early 1900s he produced three seasons of work at The Royal Court Theatre where he subsequently directed ten plays by George Bernard Shaw.  Granville Barker's other plays include The Voysey Inheritance, The Marrying of Ann Leete and The Madras House.

Michael Attenborough will direct The European premiere of Neil LaBute's three hander, IN A DARK DARK HOUSE, which runs at the Almeida from 20 November -17 January, with press night on 27 November.  In a Dark Dark House is designed by Lez Brotherston, with lighting by Howard Harrison.  Casting will be announced shortly.

IN A DARK DARK HOUSE finds two brothers brought together as one undergoes court-ordered rehab. The forced reunion brings to light barely-hidden animosities between the two and their troubled legacy, both inside and outside their dark family home.  In a Dark Dark House received its world premiere in New York last year.

In 2003 Michael Attenborough directed John Hannah and Sinead Cusack in the European premiere of Neil LaBute's The Mercy Seat.  Previously the Almeida has presented the British Premiere of LaBute's Bash, directed by Joe Mantello and the world premieres of his plays The Distance From Here directed by David Leveaux and The Shape of Things, which he himself directed.  LaBute's film work includes The Shape of Things, In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty, Possession and Wicker Man.

As Artistic Director of The Almeida Theatre Company Michael Attenborough's productions have been Neil LaBute's The Mercy Seat as well as Five Gold Rings, Brighton Rock, The Late Henry Moss, Enemies, Frank McGuinness' There Came A Gypsy Riding, Theodore Ward's Big White Fog and Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing! and most recently his critically acclaimed production of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming.  On leaving the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was Principal Associate Director, he was invited to become an Honorary Associate Artist.  In 2005 Michael Attenborough directed the world premiere of David Edgar's Playing with Fire in the Olivier at The National Theatre.

Matt Wilde will direct Peter McDonald in the European premiere of Adam Rapp's one man play, NOCTURNE.  Performances of NOCTURNE are 16, 17, 18 (press performance), 19, 23, 24, 25 and 26 July at 7.30pm and 19 and 26 July at 3pm.  Tickets are £20, £15 and £6.   For NOCTURNE Wilde will collaborate with composer Phillip Neil Martin – most recently Music Creator in Residence at the Royal College of Fashion.  The Almeida Theatre production of NOCTURNE will be presented at the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe following its run in Islington. 

Rapp's keen eye for human relationships and his deft ear for language makes for a shocking exploration of the accidental killing of a little girl by her teenage brother.   Across the decade and a half that follows the teenager becomes a man, and tries to cope with the ramifications of his guilt and the estrangement of his surviving family, while making a desperate search for redemption.

Peter McDonald was most recently on stage in James McDonald's production of Glengarry Glen Ross at the Apollo Theatre.  His other theatre credits include Exiles and The Aristocrats for The National Theatre, Resurrection Blues for the Old Vic, Days of Wine and Roses and A Lie of the Mind for the Donmar Warehouse, The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Garrick Theatre and The Wexford Trilogy for the Tricycle Theatre.  His television credits include The Family Man, Sea of Souls, The Plot to Kill Hitler, Green Wing and Spooks.  His film credits include Nora, I Went Down, Saltwater (for which he won best actor at the Irish Film and Television Awards), The Henchman's Tales, Felicia's Journey and November Afternoon.

Award-winning Adam Rapp is an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker.  His plays which have been produced in the UK include Ghosts in the Cottonwoods and Gompers, both at the Arcola Theatre, Blackbird which was performed at the Bush Theatre and Finer Noble Gases which was produced at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  His other work, produced in the US, includes Animals and Plants, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Faster, Trueblinker, Dreams of the Salthouse and Red Light Winter.

Matt Wilde is a former Associate Director of The National Theatre Studio and has worked extensively as a Staff and Associate Director for The National Theatre and Out of Joint.   For Almeida Projects he directed Roy Williams' Out of the Fog.  His other directing credits include Get Tested for the 24hr Plays at the Old Vic, The Sky's The Limit for Old Vic New Voices, Polar Bear for Birmingham Rep, On Tour for the Royal Court and Liverpool Everyman and Roy Williams' Slow Time for NT Education.  He was Co-Director with Nicholas Hytner on the revival of His Dark Materials for The National Theatre and Associate Director on David Hare's Stuff Happens, also for the National.   Wilde's production of Simon Bent's Branded has recently been seen at the Old Vic.

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