Mamet's House of Games and Ibsen's Master Builder Set for Almeida

Lindsay Posner will direct Richard Bean's new stage version of David Mamet's film, House of Games previewing from 9 September and running until 6 November, with press night on 16 September. Designs are by Peter McKintosh with lighting by Paul Pyant. Casting will be announced shortly.

Harvard-educated psychoanalyst Margaret Ford is celebrated for her bestselling book ‘Driven! Compulsion and Obsession in Every Day Life'. Helping one of her patients settle his gambling debts, she compromises her professional reputation and is drawn into the seedy underworld of the House of Games poker club. Seduced by charismatic hustler Mike, Margaret convinces herself that she can make an academic study of the con-artist. Before she realises it, Margaret is entangled in a fast-paced thriller.

David Mamet's other works as a playwright include Romance, Oleanna, Glengarry GLen Ross (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize), American Buffalo, A Life in the Theatre, Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Speed-the-Plow. As well as translations and adaptations his other writing includes five volumes of essays, children's books, as well as poems and novels. His films, as a writer, includeThe Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, The Untouchables and The Winslow Boy and as writer/director, House of Games which marked his film directorial debut, Oleanna,The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main and Heist.

The Almeida has previously presented Richard Bean's version of Moliere's The Hypochondriac. His play On the Side of the Angels will be presented as part of the Tricycle Theatre's The Great Game: Afghanistan season in July. His other writing credits include England People Very Nice which premiered at the National Theatre in 2009, The English Game, produced by Headlong, Harvest, Honeymoon Suite and Toast all for the Royal Court, The Mentalists for the National Theatre and Up On Roof for Hull Truck.

Previously Lindsay Posner has directed Mamet's Romance for The Almeida Theatre as well as The Hypochondriac and Tom and Viv. His other extensive directing credits include Mamet's Oleanna, A Life in the Theatre and Sexual Perversity in Chicago, as well as, more recently, Fiddler on the Roof for Sheffield Theatres and the Savoy Theatre, Three Sisters on Hope Street for Hampstead Theatre, Carousel at the Savoy Theatre and A View from the Bridge at the Duke of York's Theatre.

T H E M A S T E R B U I L D E R

Travis Preston is to direct Stephen Dillane in Kenneth McLeish's translation of Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder previewing from 12 November and running until 8 January 2011, with press night on 18 November. Designs are by Vicki Mortimer with lighting by Paul Pyant and sound by John Leonard. Casting will be announced shortly.

Master Builder Halvard Solness has reached the pinnacle of his career. But at a cost; his family life is in ruins and he lives in fear that the next generation will rise up and brush him aside. When Hilde Wangel, a bewitching young woman, arrives to collect a decade-old debt, she breathes new life into his professional pride. As Solness completes his architectural masterpiece, will Hilde be the Master Builder's ultimate downfall?

Stephen Dillane was last at the Almeida in his one man Macbeth directed by Travis Preston and can soon be seen at the Old Vic in Sam Mendes' productions ofThe Tempest and As You Like It as part of The Bridge Project 2010. His award-winning theatre work includes Hamlet at the Gielgud Theatre and The Real Thing for the Donmar Warehouse. For the National Theatre his credits includeThe Coast of Utopia, Angels in America and Dancing at Lughnasa and at The Royal Court Theatre he has been seen in Drunk Enough to Say I Love You, Our Late Night and Hush. His film credits include The Hours, Hamlet, Welcome to Sarajevo, The Greatest Game Ever Played and the Goal trilogy. On television his credits include John Adam and The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall.

Travis Preston, Artistic Director of the Center for New Performance at Cal Arts, the professional producing arm of California Institute of the Arts, is an internationally celebrated director of theatre and opera. He directed the acclaimed production of Macbeth with Stephen Dillane which opened at The Almeida Theatre in 2005 and then toured to Sydney and Adelaide, Australia with performances also taking place at the California Institute for the Arts.

The Almeida has previously presented Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Rosmersholm and When We Dead Awaken.

WEBSITE www.almeida.co.uk

 

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