Marianne Elliott-Helmed THE UNBELIEVERS and More Set for Royal Court Theatre 2025 Lineup

The Royal Court Theatre will present six productions running from May to December, to complete Artistic Director David Byrne’s 2025 programme. This includes four World Premieres and two touring productions, each featuring world-class artists and collectively showcasing the rich possibilities of what contemporary new writing can be. The Royal Court also announces plans for the second iteration of our Open Submissions Festival later this year, an 18-month attachment for playwright Tife Kusoro and the opening of submissions for the inaugural Young Playwrights Award.

FOUR WORLD PREMIERES

A deaf boy is killed in an occupied town and the next morning the whole population wakes up deaf in Deaf Republic, an expansive production about solidarity and collective resistance from world-renowned theatre company Dead Centre and Sign Language Poet Zoë McWhinney, based on the multi-award-winning epic poems by Ukrainian-American poet, Ilya Kaminsky (Fri 29 Aug - Sat 13 Sep 2025).

Made entirely with sound and no words, Cow | Deer is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between Katie Mitchell, Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson, which radically decentres humans in an exploration of our relationship to animals and the environment, in co-production with The National Theatre of Greece (Thu 4 Sep - Sat 11 Oct 2025).

Time fractures in Nick Payne’s The Unbelievers, directed by Marianne Elliott, designed by Bunny Christie and starring Nicola Walker as a mother facing the disappearance of her son, in this co-production with Playful Productions about family, memory and hope (Fri 10 Oct - Sat 29 Nov 2025).

Studies show that women are statistically more likely to watch violent pornography than men. Sophia Chetin-Leuner’s Porn Play explores women’s relationship to porn through one academic’s addiction, directed by Josie Rourke and starring Ambika Mod (Thu 6 Nov - Sat 13 Dec 2025).

TWO TOURING PRODUCTIONS

Coming to London following its acclaimed national tour, Breach’s new musical After the Act unpacks an act of oppression that sparked a generational riot. From 1988 to the present, the show remixes archival research and personal accounts of Section 28 as a turning point in LGBTQIA+ history. By Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens, composed by Frew (Wed 21 May - Sat 14 Jun 2025).

Nassim Soleimanpour’s boundary-pushing ECHO, a production about home and belonging, returns to the Royal Court following its debut in 2024, ahead of an extensive international tour. Directed by Omar Elerian, new performers taking to the stage without rehearsal include Mel Giedroyc, Nish Kumar and Juliet Stevenson (Fri 27 Jun - Sat 5 Jul 2025).

ALSO ANNOUNCED

Now in its second iteration, the Open Submissions Festival will continue to provide brilliant new writing found through the Royal Court’s open programmes with a professional platform (Tue 14 - Sat 18 Oct 2025).

Playwright Tife Kusoro (G) will join the Royal Court on attachment for eighteen months, generously supported by Peggy Ramsay's Playwrights '73 bursary. As part of her attachment, Tife will write a new play, and will support the inaugural Young Playwrights Festival in July, inspiring the next generation of British playwrights.

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