Cate Blanchett and Tom Burke Will Lead New Version of THE SEAGULL at The Barbican Theatre

Cate Blanchett and Tom Burke will star in Duncan MacMillan and Thomas Ostermeier's new version of Chekhov's masterpiece The Seagull. Also directed by Ostermeier, the production will play a limited 6 week run at the Barbican Theatre from February 2025. 

Tickets starts at £20, and for every performance there are over 100 tickets at that price.

The Seagull marks a return to the Barbican stage for Cate Blanchett following her performance in Botho Strauss' Big and Small (Gross und Klein), in 2012, adapted by Martin Crimp and directed by Benedict Andrews for Sydney Theatre Company (STC), where Blanchett was co-Artistic Director alongside Andrew Upton. Early in their tenure at STC they welcomed Thomas Ostermeier to the company with his acclaimed production of Hamlet as part of Sydney Festival.

The production reunites Blanchett and Burke who have recently completed filming on Steven Soderbergh's Black Bag; and also reunites Ostermeier with Wessex Grove, who collaborated earlier this year on the director's West End debut – An Enemy of the People with Matt Smith.

Thomas Ostermeier said today, “I have known and admired Cate for many years, and to see her on stage is always a privilege. I am thrilled that we will make our first artistic collaboration with this production of The Seagull at the Barbican, and that London will experience this once in a generation actress in one of the greatest theatrical roles of Arkadina. I'm also very pleased to be forging a new artistic relationship with Tom Burke, who will play the role of Trigorin.”

Audiences are invited to sign up for more information about The Seagull at www.theseagullplay.co.uk 

Full cast and creative team will be announced shortly.

Blanchett stars as Arkadina, a celebrated actress whose larger-than-life presence dominates both the stage and her personal relationships. Arriving at her family's country estate for the weekend, she finds herself caught up in a storm of conflicting desires. Her playwright son, Konstantin, struggles to step out of her shadow as he pursues his own artistic ambitions and her lover Trigorin, played by Tom Burke, becomes the object of affection for the aspiring young actress Nina.

As their lives entwine and they each grapple with their desires, ambitions, and disappointments, Chekhov's timeless story unfolds in a gripping tale of vanity, power, and the sacrifices made in the name of art.

Biographies

Cate Blanchett plays Arkadina. She served alongside Andrew Upton as co-Artistic Director and co-CEO of Sydney Theatre Company (STC) between 2008-2013, producing 16 shows a year across 4 stages, many of which toured nationally and internationally. Notable productions include Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire directed by Liv Ullman; Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya directed by Tamás Ascher,  Steven Soderbergh's Tot Mom; Benedict Andrews' productions of The War Of The Roses, Genet's The Maids and Botho Strauss' Gross Und Klein; the seminal adaptation of The Secret River by Neil Armfield; numerous productions by director Kip Williams; and Andrew Upton's The Present directed by John Crowley for which Blanchett earned a Tony Award nomination for its Broadway run. Blanchett's most recent performance in London was at The National Theatre in Martin Crimp's When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other directed by Katie Mitchell. Her screen credits include Taìr, Nightmare Alley, Don't Look Up, Ocean's 8, Thor: Ragnorok, Carol, Blue Jasmine, I'm Not There, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Notes on a Scandal, The Life Aquatic, Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, The Lord of The Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit, The Good German, The Aviator, The Talented Mr Ripley and Elizabeth. Blanchett has won numerous awards including two Academy Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes and four Screen Actors Guild awards. Blanchett is co-Founder and Principal of production company Dirty Films for which she has produced and acted, alongside partners Andrew Upton and Coco Francini, which recently launched PROOF OF CONCEPT, providing support and opportunities to women, trans and non-binary filmmakers. She created and produced the award-winning Audible Original podcast CLIMATE OF CHANGE, and produced EVOLVER, a VR interactive experience which was selected for the first ever Immersive Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. She has presided over festival juries in Cannes and Venice, and The Venice Film Festival has twice awarded her The Volpi Cup for Best Performance. Blanchett holds a BFI Fellowship from the BFI London Film Festival, has received the Stanley Kubrick Award for Excellence in Film and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Numerous other accolades include the Honorary Cesar, International Goya and Chaplin Awards.

Tom Burke plays Trigorin. His theatre work includes Rosmersholm (Duke of York's Theatre), Don Carlos (UK tour), The Deep Blue Sea, The Doctor's Dilemma (National Theatre), Reasons to be Happy (Hampstead Theatre), Reasons to be Pretty, Macbeth (Almeida Theatre), Design for Living (The Old Vic), for The Donmar Warehouse, Creditors (also New York, winner of the Ian Charleson Award) and The Cut, and Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare's Globe). His television work includes Extinction, The Crown, Strike, The Musketeers, War and Peace, Utopia, The Hour,  Great Expectations, Casanova, and State of Play; and for film, Furiosa, The Wonder, Klokkenluider, True Things About Me, Mank, The Souvenir, The Invisible Woman, The Libertine, Telstar, Chéri, An Enemy to Die For, Cleanskin, Only God Forgives, The Invisible Woman and The Hooligan Factory.  

Since September 1999 Thomas Ostermeier has been resident director and member of the Artistic Direction of the Schaubühne Berlin. His productions for the company include An Enemy of the People, Death in Venice, The Little Foxes - audience award of the Theatergemeinde Berlin, Richard III - Premio della Critica Teatrale, Bella Figura, Professor Bernhardi, Returning to Reims, History of Violence, Italian Night, Abgrund – co-production with Salzburger Festspiele, Youth Without God, Vernon Subutex, Ödipus, Qui a tué mon Père and The Seagull. His other theatre work includes Der starke Stamm, Vor Sonnenaufgang, Die Ehe der Maria Braun, and Susn (Münchner Kammerspiele), The Girl on the Sofa (Edinburgh Festival – Herald Angel Award), The Master Builder (Burgtheater in Vienna), The Seagull (Théâtre-Vidy, Lausanne), Knives in Hens, Nora – Nestroy Prize and Politika Prize, Hedda Gabler - audience award of the Theatergemeinde Berlin, Die Ehe der Maria Braun, Returning to Reims (Theatertreffen Berlin), John Gabriel Borkman - Grand Prix de la Critique of France, Hamlet - Barcelona Critics Prize and critic's prize as Best International Production 2011 in Chile, The Cut - critic´s prize at the international theatre festival KONTAKT in Torun, Measure for Measure - Friedrich-Luft-Prize for the Best Theatre Performance in Berlin, La Nuit des rois ou Tout ce que vous voulez (Comédie-Française Paris) – Prix Molière for the best Production in France 2022 - as well as productions across the globe. In November 2004 Ostermeier was appointed Artiste Associé for the Festival d'Avignon by the artistic director of the festival, Vincent Baudriller, and has been presenting shows at the Festival regularly since then. In 2023 he opened the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence with his version of Brecht's/ Weill's The Threepenny Opera. He has been appointed Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French ministry of Culture, was German president of the Deutsch-Französischer Kulturrat (DKFR) - German-French Council of Culture, was the recipient of the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the KYTHERA-Price for Culture, and is a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Künste, of the Académie de Berlin and of the Deutsch-Französischer Kulturrat, as well as receiving honorary doctorates from the Universities of Kent and Gothenberg.

Duncan MacMillan is an award-winning writer and director. His work has been performed throughout the world, including at The National Theatre, the Royal Court, Old Vic, Almeida, Barbican, St Ann's Warehouse, Melbourne Theatre Company, Berliner Ensemble, Schaubühne Berlin, Hamburg Schauspielhaus, Burgtheater Wien, Vesturport, Kansallisteatteri, Nationaltheatret Oslo, at the Salzburg Festival, in the West End and on Broadway. His screen work has been shown at the London and Berlin film festivals, on the BBC, Netflix and HBO. Plays include People, Places and Things, Lungs; Every Brilliant Thing; Rosmersholm (adapt. Henrik Ibsen); 1984 (adapt. George Orwell, co-written and co-directed with Robert Icke); City of Glass (adapt. Paul Auster) and 2071 (co-written with Chris Rapley); The Forbidden Zone; Wunschloses Unglück (adapt. Peter Handke); and Reise durch die Nacht (adapt. Friederike Mayröcker), which was selected for Theatertreffen and Festival d'Avignon and awarded the Nestroy Preis for Best German Language Production. People, Places and Things, 1984 and Rosmersholm were all nominated for Olivier Awards.

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