THE KITE RUNNER Announces West End Extension, Major National Tour, and Best Actor Award Nomination

The production's second West End season of the year at The Playhouse Theatre is being extended by a month to 26 August

Emilio Doorgasingh has been nominated Best Actor of the Year in Eastern Eye's Arts Culture & Theatre Awards for The Kite Runner's West End premiere, and The Kite Runner will tour 11 cities and towns across the UK from 31 August with more dates to be announced for 2018.

After winning rave reviews at Wyndham's Theatre, receiving standing ovations at every show and captivating an audience of 60,000 theatregoers earlier this year, The Kite Runner announced that it would fly again in the West End in a strictly limited 8-week season at The Playhouse Theatre from 8 June.

Today producers announce a month-long extension to the end of August.

Tickets are now on sale for the extra dates to Saturday 26 August.

Emilio Doorgasingh, who is returning to the show in the pivotal role of Baba, has been nominated Best Actor of the Year in the annual Eastern Eye Arts Culture & Theatre Awards for The Kite Runner's West End premiere at Wyndham's Theatre. The winners will be announced on May 21 at a ceremony in London.

Emilio is returning to the show at The Playhouse Theatre together with Andrei Costin "(deeply affecting" - Sunday Express; "subtle, mesmerising, heartbreaking and quietly brilliant" - West End Whingers; "the show stealer in a restrained and touching performance" - Jewish Chronicle) as Hassan, David Ahmad, who now plays the show's narrator, Amir, Lisa Zahra, Ezra Khan, Bhavin Bhatt and Tabla musician Hanif Khan. New to the West End cast are Ravi Aujla, Umar Pasha Jay Sajjid and Karl Seth.

Producers today also announce a major 11-venue UK tour following the West End season. The Kite Runner will open at Nottingham Playhouse (31 Aug - 9 Sept) then visit Glasgow Theatre Royal (11 - 16 Sept), Leeds West Yorkshire Playhouse (19 - 23 Sept), Cambridge Arts Theatre (25 - 30 September), Salford Lowry (3 - 7 Oct) , Edinburgh King's Theatre (9 - 14 Oct), Sheffield Lyceum (17 - 21 Oct), Cheltenham Everyman (30 Oct - 4 Nov), Bath (6 - 11 Nov), Brighton Theatre Royal (14 - 18 Nov), Exeter Northcott Theatre (21- 25 Nov).

Further 2018 tour dates will be announced soon.

Based on Khaled Hosseini's international best-selling novel, this haunting and powerful story has been adapted into a stunning stage production. A haunting tale of friendship which spans cultures and continents, it follows one man's journey to confront his past and find redemption. Afghanistan is a divided country on the verge of war and two childhood friends are about to be torn apart. It's a beautiful afternoon in Kabul and the skies are full of the excitement and joy of a kite flying tournament. But neither Hassan or Amir can foresee the terrible incident which will shatter their lives forever...

The Kite Runner, published in 2003, was Khaled Hosseini's first novel. It became an instant bestseller across the globe and has since been published in 70 countries, selling 31.5 million copies in 60 languages.

The Kite Runner is adapted by Matthew Spangler and directed by Giles Croft. It is produced in the West End by Martin Dodd for UK Productions and Derek Nicol & Paul Walden for Flying Entertainment. It was originally produced by Nottingham Playhouse and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse.

Matthew Spangler (Stage Adaptation)
Matthew Spangler is a playwright, director, and professor based in the San Francisco Bay Area other plays include one- person shows of James Joyce's Dubliners and Finnegan's Wake; A Paradise It Seems, an adaptation of John Cheever's short stories; Mozart!, a musical theatre adaptation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's letters; as well as stage adaptations of John Steinbeck's fiction; Ernest Hemingway's short stories; Thomas Wolfe's The Lost Boy; Clyde Edgerton's Where Trouble Sleeps; and T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtain (recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award).

Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and history at a high school in Kabul. In 1976, the Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then their homeland had witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet Army. The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States, and in September 1980 moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1988. The following year he entered the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, where he earned a medical degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles and was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004.In March 2001, while practicing medicine, Hosseini began writing his rst novel, The Kite Runner. Published by Bloomsbury in 2003, that debut went on to become an international bestseller and beloved classic, sold in at least 70 countries and spending more than 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. In May 2007, his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, remaining in that spot for 15 weeks and nearly an entire year on the bestseller list. Together, the two books have sold more than 10 million copies in the United States and more than 38 million copies worldwide. The Kite Runner was adapted into a graphic novel of the same name in 2011. Hosseini's much-awaited third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, was published in 2013. In 2006, Hosseini was named a Goodwill Envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. Inspired by a trip he made to Afghanistan with the UNHCR, he later established The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonpro t, which provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. He lives in Northern California.