Thea Sharrock to Direct Churchill's Cloud 9 at Almeida

Thea Sharrock will direct Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine, previewing at the Almeida from October 25 with press night on October 31, running until December 8. 

"Set in colonial Africa and modern-day Britain, Caryl Churchill's landmark play Cloud Nine is about relationships – between women and men, men and men, women and women.  It is about sex, work, mothers, Africa, power, children, grandmothers, politics, money, Queen Victoria and sex," state press materials.

Multi award-winning Caryl Churchill wrote her first stage play, Owners, in 1972.  For the Royal Court where she was Resident Dramatist her many plays include Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, A Number, Far Away, Serious Money, Blue Heart, This is a Chair and Top Girls.  Her other plays include Fen, A Mouthful of Birds, A Dream Play and The Skriker.  Churchill has also written for television.  Cloud Nine was first staged by Joint Stock and premiered in London at the Royal Court in 1979.  In 1981, Cloud Nine opened in New York where it played for two years off-Broadway and has since been staged world-wide.

Thea Sharrock most recently directed Peter Shaffer's Equus at the Gielgud Theatre.  Her other theatre credits include A Voyage Round My Father which transferred from the Donmar Warehouse to Wyndham's Theatre and Heroes also at Wyndham's Theatre, as well as Private Lives, Don Juan and Blithe Spirit for Bath Theatre Royal, Tejas Verdes for The Gate where she was Artistic Director, Free for The National Theatre's Loft Season and A Doll's House, Mongoose, Trip's Cinch and The Sleeper Den all for Southwark Playhouse where she was also Artistic Director.  Her Gate Theatre production of Emperor Jones opens at The National Theatre in August.  Thea Sharrock previously directed Caryl Churchill's Top Girls at Battersea Arts Centre as the recipient of the James Menzies-Kitchin Memorial Trust's Young Director of the Year Award 2000.  Later her production toured the UK before a run at the Aldwych Theatre in 2002. 

Designs are by Peter McKintosh with lighting by Peter Mumford and sound by Gregory Clarke.  Casting will be announced shortly.