Tom Stoppard and Richard Bean Feature in Hampstead Theatre's New Season

Hampstead Theatre has announced a full season of eight new productions beginning on 7 September 2023 and running until 16 March 2024.

The season includes three world premieres on the main stage - anthropology by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Anna Ledwich; To Have and To Hold by Richard Bean, directed Richard Wilson; and Double Feature by John Logan, directed by Jonathan Kent.

A further three world premieres and a UK Premiere will play in Hampstead Downstairs -Octopolis by Marek Horn, directed by Ed Madden; Nineteen Gardens by Magdalena Miecznicka, directed by Alice Hamilton; This Much I Know by Jonathan Spector, directed by Chelsea Walker and Out of Season by Neil D'Souza, also directed by Alice Hamilton.

Completing the season is Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll which is given a timely new perspective by director Nina Raine. Tickets for all eight productions go on sale to members today (Thursday 18 May) and to the public on Thursday 25 May.

Hampstead Theatre's Producer and Chief Executive Greg Ripley-Duggan said:

"We're thrilled that, after all the challenges we have had to face in the last few months, we are able to bring together eight fantastic writers and seven brilliant directors in a programme of plays that has Hampstead Theatre's DNA running right through it.

"For over sixty years Hampstead has produced entertaining and thought-provoking original work by the world's finest and most celebrated playwrights, so it's wonderful to be able to continue that commitment with work by Tom Stoppard, John Logan, Lauren Gunderson and Richard Bean alongside an exciting line-up of outstanding work by less familiar writers.

"We look forward to welcoming audiences for this exciting season of entertaining, intelligent and topical plays offering new perspectives on a range of subjects from AI to Alfred Hitchcock and from growing old to rock 'n' roll."

The programme for autumn 2023 marks a new future for Hampstead Theatre following Arts Council England's decision to cut its NPO grant by 100%. Hampstead's future and renewed commitment to present ambitious original work will be driven by ticket sales, commercial income and philanthropic support.

The generosity of major donors and supporters means that Hampstead Theatre is continuing to commission new plays. It will also remain committed to mentoring new writers through its INSPIRE programme which is now in its fifth year and led by Roy Williams. Furthermore, Hampstead Downstairs will remain the home of new plays thanks to the continued philanthropic support of Celia Atkin, who has been the lead donor towards this work since 2017.

Playwright, Tom Stoppard said:

"A new era begins in September at Hampstead Theatre and it's the era of plays unsubsidised by the Arts Council. A season that will depend on philanthropy and the box office. And it will go ever onward doing what Hampstead has always done so well - championing new writing, young and older playwrights, bold plays one after another. We all need Hampstead Theatre to succeed and to be helped to succeed."

HAMPSTEAD THEATRE MAIN STAGE

anthropology
By Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Anna Ledwich
7 September - 14 October 2023

Press Night: Monday 18 September

"I built you because this is what I do. It's my job. These are my tools, I used them, and honestly it's not that hard - you're basically a chatbot."

Merril is one of Silicon Valley's leading software engineers, but her life disintegrates when her younger sister Angie vanishes on her way home from college. A year later, when the police have long abandoned their search, Merril assembles all the digital material Angie has left behind and sets about building herself a digital simulation of her sister. The resultant 'virtual Angie' offers her some solace - until, that is, it starts to reveal new details about the real Angie's disappearance.

San Francisco-based Lauren Gunderson is one of the world's most produced playwrights; her I and You was a huge success at Hampstead in 2018. Author of over 20 plays, Lauren has also received the Lanford Wilson Award at the Dramatists Guild Awards and two Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards.

anthropology is the twelfth play that Anna Ledwich has directed for Hampstead, where her work has included the Olivier-nominated productions of Dry Powder and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds.

To Have and To Hold

By Richard Bean

Directed by Richard Wilson
20 October - 25 November
Press Night: Thursday 26 October

"He talks about going to Switzerland, to that place where you pay them to kill you... And I say "go! It'll do you good. Broaden your horizons...you've never been abroad!"

After sixty years of marriage, happily settled into their retirement village in Yorkshire, Jack and Florence have elevated bickering almost to the status of high art. That said, they're otherwise getting along fine with the support of a cousin and the hilarious interventions of the man known locally as 'Rhubarb Eddie'. But will their anxious son, shuttling between London and LA, and their errant daughter, contemplating a move to Australia, leave them to live out their days in peace?

Richard Bean's uproarious new comedy tackles the prickly problem of dealing with ageing parents who just don't want to be dealt with! Writer of the international smash-hit comedy One Man, Two Guvnors, Bean returns to Hampstead after successes with Kiss Me and In the Club. Work elsewhere includes Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre), Young Marx (Bridge) and Made in Dagenham, The Musical (Adelphi).

Director Richard Wilson returns to Hampstead after the success of his production of Peggy For You. He is reunited with Bean whose plays Toast, Under the Whaleback (both Royal Court) and The Nap (Sheffield Crucible) he also directed.

To Have And To Hold is a Hampstead Theatre Next Decade commission.

Rock 'n' Roll

by Tom Stoppard

Directed by Nina Raine
6 December - 27 January
Press Night: Tuesday 12 December

"If I was English I wouldn't care if Communism in Czechoslovakia reformed itself into a pile of pig shit. To be English would be my luck."

1968: Russian tanks have rolled into Czechoslovakia, and Syd Barrett has been dumped by Pink Floyd. Jan, a visiting postgrad at Cambridge, breaks with his old professor Max, a Marxist philosopher, and heads home to Prague with his suitcase full of "socially negative music". Rock 'n' Roll covers the ensuing 21 years in the lives of three generations of Max's family while Jan is caught in the spiral of dissidence in a Communist police state. But it's a love story too - and then there's the music...

Tom Stoppard returns to Hampstead after the triumphant revival of Hapgood (2015). Winner of eight Evening Standard, three Olivier and five Tony Awards, Stoppard's plays includeLeopoldstadt; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Arcadia.

Director Nina Raine also returns to Hampstead where her directing credits include her own play Tiger Country (2011 & 2014) and William Boyd's Longing (2013).

"Triumphant! Rock 'n' Roll is arguably Stoppard's finest play" The New York Times

Double Feature

by John Logan

Directed by Jonathan Kent
8 February - 16 March
Press Night: Monday 19 February 2024

"Art and Eros are always superimposed, don't you find? You cannot separate the two: the model naked in supplication before the artist; the artist exposing himself in trust. The beast of creation is always erect."

1964/1967. In a rented cottage in Suffolk, a brilliant young film director, deep in making his magnum opus, confronts the ageing star that the studio has imposed on him. Vincent Price is about to walk out on the film, and Michael Reeves' career hangs by a thread. Across the world, in a strange simulacrum of a Suffolk cottage created on a Hollywood lot, a great director and his star are engaged in a very different sort of power-game, as Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren take time off from making Marnie for one final confrontation.

John Logan is an American playwright and screenwriter. His other work includes the Tony Award-winning play Red (West End and Broadway); Peter and Alice (West End); the book for Moulin Rouge (West End, Broadway, International); and screenplays including The Aviator, Skyfall and Gladiator.

Jonathan Kent returns to Hampstead where his previous productions include Good People; The Slaves of Solitude and The Forest.

HAMPSTEAD DOWNSTAIRS

Octopolis

by Marek Horn

Directed by Ed Madden
15 September - 28 October
Press Night: Monday 25 September

"There were three people in my marriage. Dr Giscard... Three people and twelve legs."

Professor George Grey is a brilliant behavioural biologist who, alongside her recently deceased husband, became world-renowned for her pioneering research into octopus intelligence. Mainly the intelligence of one particular octopus, in fact: Frances, who still resides in a large, purpose-built tank in George's campus accommodation.

Into this house of grief walks Harry - an ambitious anthropologist, despatched by the university with permission to test his breath-taking new theory on Frances. The nature of his assignment is shocking to George, and threatens to tear her world apart in more ways than one.

Marek Horn's plays include Wild Swimming (Edinburgh Fringe and Bristol Old Vic) andYellowfin (Southwark Playhouse). Octopolis is directed by Ed Madden and is his second collaboration with Marek. Ed' credits include Yellowfin (Southwark Playhouse), A Table Tennis Play (Edinburgh Fringe) and the original production of Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons.

Nineteen Gardens

By Magdalena Miecznicka

Directed by Alice Hamilton
3 November - 9 December
Press Night: Thursday 9 November

"When I got your email my heart went out to you. All of a sudden it dawned on me how I had missed you - how I had missed what we'd had."

Nearly two years after the end of their affair, John and Aga meet once more. Each has filled the void left by the other: he has withdrawn into his world of wealth and privilege; she has found herself working as a chambermaid to support her family. Both recognise that the spark between them is still there. Will they rekindle what they had, or is an altogether darker game about to be played out?

Magdalena Miecznicka's lyrical human comedy is by turns seductive, enigmatic and explosive. The author of several novels in Polish, Miecznicka is also a journalist and literary critic. Now based in London, Nineteen Gardens is her first play.

Alice Hamilton is Hampstead Theatre's Associate Director. Her credits include the Downstairs productions of Every Day I Make Greatness Happen and Paradise, and The Dumb Waiter and The Memory of Water on Hampstead's main stage.

This Much I Know

By Jonathan Spector

Directed by Chelsea Walker
13 December - 27 January

Press Night: Tuesday 19 December

"I'll be gone for a while. Possibly forever. It's nothing you did."

A tenured professor of psychology, Lukesh enjoys a life as organised and logical as his mind. But then his wife vanishes, sending only a text message by way of explanation and leaving him to re-evaluate their relationship. He discovers she has embarked on an epic odyssey, crossing and recrossing Russia and delving deep into Soviet history on a quest to unravel a family mystery of which he was unaware - one in which Josef Stalin himself may be involved.

Jonathan Spector's play is at once a love story and a kaleidoscopic primer in psychology, history, and the use and abuse of power. Spector's other plays include Eureka Day (Old Vic)which won several awards and was also nominated for a New York Drama Critics Award. This Much I Know is his most recent play and won the 2023 Glickman Award and also the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award for Best New Play.

Chelsea Walker returns to Hampstead to direct following her acclaimed Hampstead Downstairs production of Yous Two. Her recent work includes On the Beach (Sheffield):

Missing Julie (Theatr Clwyd); Hedda Gabler (Sherman); Cougar (Orange Tree) and A Streetcar Named Desire (ETT).

Out of Season

By Neil D'Souza

Directed by Alice Hamilton
16 February - 23 March
Press Night: Thursday 22 February

"So, here's the plan: hit the beach, lunch alfresco, back by the afternoon, cocktails by the pool, dinner in the restaurant - which is excellent by the way - drugs, girls, half an hour's kip, flight home."

Yes - the band is back in town! Michael, Chris and Dev are returning to Ibiza and the hotel where it all began thirty years ago. But Michael's stuck in London, Dev's got a bad back and Chris...well, he's just Chris. And it turns out that none of them are in their twenties anymore! As this middle-aged trip down memory lane is about to hurtle off the tracks, Holly and Amy arrive, so down-to-earth they might just save our feckless heroes from really humiliating themselves...

Neil D'Souza's razor-sharp comedy picks over the gulf between past aspirations and present realities - how we can come to terms with the past and find a way to face the future. D'Souza's other plays include Small Miracle (Colchester) and Coming Up (Watford).

Alice Hamilton is Hampstead Theatre's Associate Director. Her credits include the Downstairs productions of Every Day I Make Greatness Happen and Paradise, and The Dumb Waiter and The Memory of Water on Hampstead's Main Stage.

Out of Season is a T. S. Eliot Foundation commission.

To post a comment, you must register and login.