London is never short of temptations, whether splashy West End shows, epic dramas or bold fringe offerings. From a starry revival to musical comedies and an incendiary Pulitzer winner, here are some of this month's most eye-catching openings. Don't forget to check back for BroadwayWorld's reviews, interviews and features!
![Shakespeare's Globe Announces Full Casting For SWIVE [ELIZABETH]](https://cloudimages2.broadwayworld.com/bww200.jpg?format=auto)
Shakespeare's Globe has announced full casting for the world premiere of Swive [Elizabeth]. Created by award-winning writer Ella Hickson and award-winning director Natalie Abrahami, and designed by Ben Stones, this new play will shine candlelight on the ways and means by which women in power negotiate patriarchal pressure in order to get their way.
The Young Vic Directors Program announces the launch of a new, improved Genesis Network website. The website has been updated and developed to better facilitate the community and peer-support at the heart of the Young Vic Directors Program, the only scheme of its kind, which has been running for nearly twenty years. The program currently serves nearly 1,000 directors, designers and producers living in the UK at the early stages of their career.
Shakespeare's Globe has announced the 201920 Sam Wanamaker Playhouse Season. Centred around She Wolves and Shrews, the season is a celebration and interrogation of women, power, and the role of the feminine in shaping our past, present and future. The candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will play host to a world-premiere of Ella Hickson's new play Swive [Elizabeth], Shakespeare's Henry VI, Richard III, and The Taming of the Shrew, and Middleton's Women Beware Women. Sandi and Jenifer Toksvig have written a new family show dubbed, Christmas at the (Snow) Globe, and a series of candlelit ghost tales will include a new story from Jeanette Winterson. Other events running throughout the season include half-term storytelling festival, Half Term Tales at the Globe, with the new Children's Laureate Cressida Cowell, and a double bill of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas, marking the centenary year since the removal of the sex disqualification act. The Globe's flagship project for secondary and post-16 students, Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank, reaches its 14th year with Macbeth.
The audience plays surveillance state in this pioneering collaboration between playwright Ella Hickson and sound designers Ben and Max Ringham. We experience the action through individual sets of headphones, corresponding to a hidden mic on our protagonist Anna - listening in to her every exchange and private moment.
The Royal Opera House today launches its 2019/20 Season, unveiling an exciting range of new commissions, world premieres and much-loved revivals, supported by a diverse range of ticketed and free daytime events, activities and festivals for people of all ages.
Anna and Hans are married, in love and moving up in the world - but it is a world ruled by suspicion. Who can be trusted when everyone is listening? Can we ever escape our past?
With SS Mendi, a co-production with Isango Ensemble, opening this week at Royal Opera House, Director of Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Samuel Hodges, today announces the full cast for a new staging of Peter Morgan's The Audience. Samuel Hodges directs Lizzie Hopley as Margaret Thatcher and Bobo MacDonald, Paul Kemp as all other Prime Ministers, Sharon Singh as The Equerry and Fay Burwell and Maddie Farmer share the role of Young Elizabeth, joining the previously announced Faye Castelow as Queen Elizabeth II. The production opens on 30 May, with previews from 24 May, and runs until 22 June.
With Peter Morgan's The Audience opening next month, Samuel Hodges, director of Nuffield Southampton Theatres today announces the company will be commissioning a new play about local pub, The Hobbit and its legal battle with a Hollywood film company over copyright infringement which began in 2012.
he JMK Trust, in partnership with Birmingham Repertory Theatre, today announce that Will Ashford receives the inaugural JMK Bob Carlton Bursary, which through the generous support of Bob's family, will fund a role as an Assistant Director at Birmingham Rep. This bursary has been established in Bob's name as an opportunity for a new director with a connection to the Midlands, where Bob hailed from.
National Theatre has announced its listings for May - October 2019. Check out the full lineup below!
Anna and Hans are married, in love and moving up in the world - but it is a world ruled by suspicion. Who can be trusted when everyone is listening? Can we ever escape our past?
Director of Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Samuel Hodges, today announces Faye Castelow as Queen Elizabeth II in the UK regional premiere of Peter Morgan's The Audience. The production, directed by Samuel Hodges, opens on 30 May, with previews from 24 May, and runs until 22 June. Further casting to be announced.
The National Theatre has announced its upcoming lineup for the first half of 2019.
Director of Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Sam Hodges today announces the full cast for his production of Howard Brenton's The Shadow Factory which returns to celebrate NST City's first anniversary after opening the space with a sell-out run last year. The cast includes Denise Black (Lady Cooper/Ma Dimmock), Bethan Cullinane (Jackie Dimmock), Joe Tracini (Len Gooch) and Michael Fenton Stevens (Lord Beaverbrook) joining returning cast members David Birrell (Fred Dimmock/Hugh Downing), Catherine Cusack (Lil Dimmock/Sylvia Meinster) and Shala Nyx (Polly Stride). The production opens on 1 February, with previews from 30 January, and runs until 2 March.
The Trustees of the JMK Trust today announce that from 2019 the JMK Award will enter a new partnership with the Orange Tree Theatre, with the winner's production forming a core part of the theatre's annual programming. At this new home, the JMK Award will offer one director the opportunity to direct a full-scale Orange Tree show with the production values and nurturing guidance the building is famous for. The JMK Award, which had previously been resident at the Young Vic for seven years, forms part of the national programme for the The JMK Trust, running alongside the Regional Directors Programme.
The Gate Theatre have announced their next production, Dear Elizabeth, a two-hander by award winning US playwright Sarah Ruhl will be performed by a series of guest actors including Travis Alabanza, Jade Anouka,Tim Crouch, Tamsin Greig and Alex Jennings.
The National Theatre has today announced its new season
Charlotte Jones's new play for nearly a decade, The Meeting, is an emotional twister that evokes concerns about female empowerment, treatment of those who are different, and the limitations of religious teachings.
Director of Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Samuel Hodges, today announces Labour MP, Jess Phillips will join the writing team for the world premiere of Women In Power. The production sees some of the UK's most influential female voices, including Wendy Cope, Jenny Eclair, Suhayla El-Bushra, Natalie Haynes, Shappi Khorsandi and Brona C Titley, come together to write this musical comedy based on the Greek classic, The Assemblywomen. Directed by NST Associate Director Blanche McIntyre, the production opens on 6 September at NST City and runs until 29 September.
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