23 November 2021
Newsdesk
• New dates for both “Daddy” by Jeremy O. Harris and The House of Shades by Beth Steel, following the postponement of their initial runs at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Anne-Marie Duff leads the cast of The House of Shades, with further casting for The House of Shades and “Daddy” to be announced in due course.
• Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni and Toby Sedgwick in Omar Elerian’s new version of Eugène Ionesco’s tragic farce The Chairs.
• The Key Workers Cycle – a collection of new plays by Francesca Beard, Sonali Bhattacharyya, Josh Elliott, Annie Jenkins, Eno Mfon, Nessah Muthy, Danusia Samal, Yomi Ṣode and Molly Taylor celebrating the stories of those who keep our daily lives running, performed by professional actors, local community participants and key workers. Produced in partnership with All Change, Clean Break and Graeae.
Also announced today:
• New dates for the previously postponed runs of Robert Icke’s productions Hamlet and Oresteia at Park Avenue Armory, New York.
• The new Genesis Almeida New Playwrights, Big Plays group for 2021/22.
• The Almeida has been awarded a place on the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Programme which will provide funding and support for the creation of a new website and platform for hosting live and video-on-demand content.
• Performances of the plays written by the twelve young playwrights on the Almeida’s Anthem project.
Almeida Artistic Director Rupert Goold said today, “When we shut the theatre in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic, the set for Jeremy O. Harris’ “Daddy” was already installed waiting for tech to commence. For six months, it gathered dust like a ghostly relic. Now, close to two years later, we’re very pleased to confirm the return of both “Daddy” and Beth Steel’s The House of Shades which we also had to postpone last year.
“Accompanying those two new plays in the season are Omar Elerian’s new version of Ionesco’s The Chairs, featuring three legendary physical theatre performers in Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni and Toby Sedgwick, and The Key Workers Cycle, a collection of nine new plays starring a local community company of actors.
“Just as The Key Workers Cycle allows us to celebrate our incredible neighbours and local residents, I also want to thank the viewers from all corners of the globe who tuned into for our recent live stream of Macbeth, as well as those who have returned to the Almeida for our current season of work. We continue to ensure that the theatre is safe for audiences, in accordance with latest government guidelines.”
THE CHAIRS
by Eugène Ionesco
Translated and adapted by Omar Elerian
Director: Omar Elerian; Designer: Cécile Trémolières; Lighting Designer: Jackie Shemesh
Saturday 5 February – Saturday 5 March 2022
Press night: Thursday 10 February
"I have a message. A struggle, a mission. Something deep in my guts, a message to share with humanity."
The water is rising. The world outside is crumbling. Alone in a room, an old man and an old woman set out chairs ready for the arrival of a very special audience.
They’ve invited everyone. The dancers, the chancers, the editors, the creditors, the picketers, the hecklers, the Leavers, the Remainers, the Remoaners. Even the bankers. All the movers and shakers are gathering to hear the old man’s final message to humanity. But will the message ever be delivered?
Translated, adapted, and directed by Omar Elerian (Misty), this exhilarating new version of Eugène Ionesco’s tragic farce reflects on a life lived together: on what has been, what might have been, and what it all really means.
The cast features Olivier Award-winner Kathryn Hunter, "one of the greatest stage actors alive" (Vanity Fair), Marcello Magni, co-founder of pioneering theatre company Complicité, and Olivier Award-winning choreographer and performer Toby Sedgwick.
Almeida Theatre, in partnership with All Change, Clean Break and Graeae, present
THE KEY WORKERS CYCLE
by Francesca Beard, Sonali Bhattacharyya, Josh Elliott, Annie Jenkins, Eno Mfon, Nessah Muthy, Danusia Samal, Yomi Ṣode, and Molly Taylor
Wednesday 9 – Saturday 12 March 2022
If the Tube ground to a halt . . .
If the supermarket shelves emptied . . .
If your bins overflowed . . .
Would it feel like something, or someone, was missing?
A chorus of delivery drivers singing through the night, a support worker haunted by visions of the women who depend on her, a funeral director showing off his dab hand with a pair of clippers. In an echo of the Medieval Mystery Plays – which brought together communities of craftsmen and merchants to act out the stories of famous miracles – The Key Workers Cycle presents a cycle of nine short plays celebrating the humour, the hope and the stories of those who keep our daily lives running.
Performed by a company of professional actors, local community participants and key workers, The Key Workers Cycle places Islington’s community at its heart.
Including:
The Social Care Workers’ Play by Francesca Beard
The Teachers’ Play by Sonali Bhattacharyya
The Funeral Directors’ Play by Josh Elliott
The Delivery Drivers’ Play by Annie Jenkins
The Women’s Centre Workers’ Play by Eno Mfon
The Midwives’ Play by Nessah Muthy
The Refuse Collectors’ Play by Danusia Samal
The Supermarket Workers’ Play by Yomi Ṣode
The TFL Workers’ Play by Molly Taylor
UK Premiere
“DADDY”
A Melodrama
by Jeremy O. Harris
Director: Danya Taymor; Set Designer: Matt Saunders; Costume Designer: Montana Levi Blanco
Lighting Designer: Isabella Byrd; Sound Designer: Lee Kinney; Movement Director: Anjali Mehra
Musical Director: Tim Sutton; Intimacy and Fight Director: Yarit Dor; Casting Director: Amy Ball
Saturday 26 March – Saturday 30 April 2022
Press night: Tuesday 5 April 2022
I will be your father figure. Put your tiny hand in mine.
I will be your preacher teacher. Anything you have in mind.
A young black artist meets an older white art collector.
A gospel choir emerges from an infinity pool.
A mother stops at nothing to save her son’s soul.
When it’s summer every day…when even is it?
In this Bel Air tale of love and family, intimacy is a commodity and the surreal gets real.
Jeremy O. Harris’ previous work includes Slave Play (nominated for a record 12 Tony Awards and returning to Broadway this autumn) and A24’s acclaimed film Zola, directed by Janicza Bravo.
Danya Taymor’s previous directing work includes Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Playwrights Horizon); Pass Over (Broadway/Lincoln Center/Steppenwolf); Familiar (Steppenwolf); queens (Lincoln Center Theater).
Cast: to be announced.
The production of “Daddy” is supported by Cockayne – Grants for the Arts and the London Community Foundation.
World Premiere
THE HOUSE OF SHADES
by Beth Steel
Director: Blanche McIntyre; Set Designer: Anna Fleischle; Costume Designer: Liam Bunster; Lighting Designer: Richard Howell; Sound Designer: Gregory Clarke; Casting Director: Annelie Powell
Saturday 7 May – Saturday 18 June 2022
Press night: Tuesday 17 May
Nothing cuts into us like the family knife.
The Webster House.
1965. 1979. 1985. 1996. 2019.
Death silences no one, least of all the dead.
Blanche McIntyre directs the world premiere of Beth Steel’s revelatory new play which spans five decades of the lives, and deaths, of the Webster family.
Inside their home, set against the ever-changing industrial landscape of working-class Britain, some chase dreams of a brighter future and others are haunted by the nightmares of the past.
The House of Shades was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Beth Steel’s other plays include Labyrinth, Wonderland and Ditch. She was awarded the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2014.
Blanche McIntyre returns to the Almeida following her productions of Hymn and The Writer.
The cast includes Beatie Edney, Natalie Gavin, Carol Macready, Anne Marie-Duff, Mark Meadows, Daniel Millar, Issie Riley. Further casting to be confirmed.
The House of Shades is a recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.
ORESTEIA | HAMLET
Park Avenue Armory, New York
Tuesday 31 May – Saturday 13 August 2022
Following acclaimed, award-winning runs at the Almeida and in the West End, Robert Icke’s productions of Oresteia and Hamlet transfer to Park Avenue Armory, New York for limited seasons.
For the productions’ North American premieres, which will run in repertory, Lia Williams returns to her role as Klytemnestra in Oresteia, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actress, and Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game, The End of the F***ing World) stars as Hamlet.
www.armoryonpark.org
GENESIS ALMEIDA NEW PLAYWRIGHTS, BIG PLAYS PROGRAMME
The Genesis Almeida New Playwrights, Big Plays Programme is an annual programme that supports emerging and mid-career writers to develop new plays for larger stages giving them the space and time to experiment with form and scale. Each writer on the programme is commissioned to develop one new play and will be given dramaturgical support from the Almeida’s Literary Manager and artistic team. During the year the writers will also attend twelve masterclasses led by established British and international playwrights, directors, designers and other creatives, and be given a five day R&D workshop to develop their commission.
The Genesis Almeida Writers Programme is made possible by the support of the Genesis Foundation.
The Genesis Almeida Writers for 2021/22 are:
Josh Elliott
Eno Mfon
Uma Nada-Rajah
Michael John O’Neill
Ava Pickett
Sid Sagar
Molly Taylor
The Genesis Foundation was founded by John Studzinski CBE in 2001. Over the past 20 years, the Foundation has donated a total of more than £20 million to the arts. Through its funding and partnership model, it has enabled opportunities for thousands of young artists in theatre and music, building both their experience and their resilience. The Foundation’s main focus is on partnerships with leading arts organisations such as the Young Vic, National Theatre, Almeida Theatre, LAMDA and The Sixteen, and on training programmes that equip emerging artists for life as a creative professional. In 2020, it launched the COVID-19 Artists Fund, an Emergency response to help freelancers facing hardship, and the £1 million Genesis Kickstart Fund, to create future-facing projects for outstanding freelance talent in the creative sector across the UK.
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Programme
The Almeida Theatre has been awarded a place on the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Programme which will support improvements to the Almeida’s digital infrastructure, through website redevelopment and the creation of a new platform to host live and video-on-demand content.
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator helps arts organisations stabilise and thrive in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic through strategic improvements to their technology infrastructure. Bloomberg Philanthropies has invested $30 million into the Digital Accelerator programme which currently includes 26 institutions in the U.S. and 20 institutions in London.
Bloomberg Philanthropies Announces Launch Of The 2021 Global Mayors Challenge
ANTHEM
Inspired by Lolita Chakrabarti’s Hymn, Anthem is a playwriting project to support aspiring young Black playwrights. Led by Participation Associate Abi Falase, Anthem is a group of twelve young writers who have been supported and mentored by dramaturg Ola Animashawun since May 2021. Scenes from the twelve plays will be performed for the public in February 2022.
The twelve playwrights are:
Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller
Kelly Emelle
Justice Ezi
Rebecca Goulding
Fisola Kelly-Akinnuoye
Roberta Livingston
Temi Majekodunmi
Rachel Oyawale
Taiwo Ava Oyebola
Rianna Simons
Esohe Uwadiae
Alexander Uzoka
