Nigel Whitmey

Jermyn Street Theatre kick off their Rebels season with the world premiere of Alice Allemano's About Leo. Aspiring journalist Eliza Prentice (Eleanor Wyld) lands in Mexico, bright-eyed and armed with pesky curiosity, pursuing her quest to interview ageing artist Leonora Carrington (Phoebe Pryce in her younger version, Susan Tracy in her elder). Eliza knows that the woman notoriously doesn't grant interviews - especially when they're about her former lover Max Ernst (Nigel Whitmey) - but she hopes to gain her favours with her persistence and singular point of view.

Jermyn Street Theatre announces casting for the world premiere of Alice Allemano's About Leo, the opening production in their Autumn Season. The cast of four will comprise Eleanor Wyld as journalist Eliza Prentice (Hamlet - RSC UK/US Tour, The Alchemist, Don Quixote and Doctor Faustus - RSC, Misfits - C4, Black Mirror - C4); Nigel Whitmey as prolific surrealist Max Ernst (The Crown Series 3 - Netflix, The Red Barn - Royal National Theatre, Other People - Royal Court Theatre and Saving Private Ryan - Film), twice Olivier Award nominee Susan Tracy as the elder version of Leonora Carrington (Anna Christie and Three Sisters - RSC, Cyril's Success - Finborough Theatre, A Day by the Sea - Southwark Playhouse) and Phoebe Pryce as Leonora Carrington in her earlier years ( A Passage To India - Royal & Derngate / Park Theatre, The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall - Octagon Theatre Bolton/Theatre Royal York, The Merchant Of Venice - Shakespeare's Globe/Lincoln Centre)

It was a dark and stormy night. Two couples are caught in a snowstorm on their way back from a party. Three of them arrive at a remote Connecticut farmhouse. One disappears. There's a definite pleasure in this familiar story, immaculately told in David Hare's adaptation of Georges Simenon's novel La Main. The noir thriller tropes are all in place, from femme fatales and gnawing jealousy to paranoia about what lies beneath.

Final performances of the Young Chekhov trilogy begin this autumn in the Olivier Theatre, and The Plough and the Stars is wrapping up at the Lyttelton. In addition, previews begin in the Lyttelton for The Red Barn on 6 October (press night on 17 October), and Amadeus starts previewing in the Olivier from 19 October, (press night on 26 October).

The Red Barn a new play by David Hare, based on the novel, La Main, by Georges Simenon opens in the Lyttelton Theatre on 6 October (press night 17 October). The great detective writer Georges Simenon escaped France at the end of World War Two, and arrived in the USA to start again. With his American wife, he settled at Shadow Rock Farm in Lakeville, Connecticut. Years later, he wrote La Main, a psychological thriller set in a New England farmhouse.

Ruth Wilson takes the title role in HEDDA GABLER in a new version by Patrick Marber, directed by Ivo van Hove, in the new National Theatre season. The production previews from 5 December.

Gary Naylor sees an engrossing play that asks as many questions as it answers about teenagers, parents, schools and language.

Southwark Playhouse today announces the full cast for the UK premiere of JC Lee's LUCE, which runs March 9 to April 2. Joining Mel Geidroyc are Natasha Gordon, Martins Imhangbe, Elizabeth Tan and Nigel Whitmey. Natasha Gordon replaces Josette Simon who has had to withdraw from the production for personal reasons. Simon Dormandy, whose recent productions include his own stage adaptation of iconic film The Hudsucker Proxy, will direct, and his Hudsucker collaborator Dick Bird designs.

New Pulitzer Prize-winning drama starring Hari Dhillon has its UK premiere at the Bush after sell-out runs in the US: an intellectually-stimulating play about Islam, class and art and how it all fits together.

Whatsonstage.com reports that The Menier Chocolate Factory is premiering a new play by Jonathan Lewis and Miranda Foster. The husband/wife writing team's last play, Our Boys, was a hit at the Donmar Warehouse in 1995.