Polly Findlay News

Orange Tree Theatre presents JMK Award Winner Kalungi Ssebandeke's MEETINGS by Mustapha Matura, designed by Olivia Jamieson.

As celebrations continue for the 400th Anniversary of the First Folio across 2023, Shakespeare’s Globe will return to Westminster Abbey for the hugely popular Shakespeare in the Abbey for six special performances beginning this evening and running until Friday 31 March.

Chichester Festival Theatre’s Festival 2023 – the final season programmed by outgoing Artistic Director Daniel Evans – has been announced by Daniel and Executive Director Kathy Bourne.

The JMK Trust announces the shortlisted directors, and the designers they are partnered with, for this year's JMK Award – Emily Aboud, Joanna Bowman, Emerald Crankson, Leo Doulton, Dale Edwards, Masha Kevinovna, Indiana Lown-Collins and Elsie Yager.

'I see THE LION very much about what it was like for me to turn thirty, about how I became myself. When I began writing the show, in 2012, I was very much the-son-to-the-father. As of now, in London 2022, my wife and I are expecting our second child, a son. When I performed THE LION one last time (Southwark Playhouse, May 2022), it was the first and only time I've performed the show as a father. During that performance, I understood the character of 'Dad' in a very different way. I also realized that young-writer-me wrote Dad and Cancer as very similar characters; quasi-mythical external forces that controlled Ben and couldn't be reasoned with.'

David Eldridge thrusts the agony and the ecstasy of middle class struggles into the limelight in his new play at the National Theatre's Dorfman stage. Let's see what BWW's critic had to say...

The Metropolitan Opera will present an audacious new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, which moves the bel canto masterpiece from 18th-century Scotland to a present-day town in the American Rust Belt, with nine performances April 23–May 21, 2022.

Following their five-star production of Beginning, which played to sold-out runs at the National Theatre and in the West End, writer David Eldridge and director Polly Findlay reunite with new play Middle, a raw, touching and funny portrait of a 21st-century marriage. Learn all about the production and how to get tickets.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Suzan-Lori Parks confronts the audience with big themes in her thrilling and radical play, which has received its European premiere at The Bridge Theatre. The writer describes this work as something that, “rips the face off of civilisation.” And I’d agree that it certainly does. Taking an unflinching look at race in the 21st Century, from both a black and white perspective, this production is undeniably bold, but reflective of the place society finds itself in today.

Suzan-Lori Parks’ White Noise has now received its European premiere at the Bridge Theatre, directed by Polly Findlay with a cast comprising James Corrigan, Ken Nwosu, Faith Omole and Helena Wilson and we have a first look at photos from the show.

Suzan-Lori Parks' White Noise will receive its European premiere at the Bridge Theatre, directed by Polly Findlay with a cast comprising James Corrigan, Ken Nwosu, Faith Omole and Helena Wilson.

In 1941 two leading physicists secretly met in Nazi-occupied Denmark to discuss the race between Hitler and the allies to create the nuclear bomb. These men were Werner Heisenberg, a German working on Hitler's bomb programme, and his old mentor Niels Bohr, a half-Jewish Dane with links to the United States’ nuclear programme. First seen in 1998, Michael Frayn’s fascinating but ultimately frustrating play, Copenhagen, explores several possibilities of what may have happened between the men.

Two young people and their dæmons, with everything at stake, find themselves at the centre of a terrifying manhunt. In their care is a tiny child called Lyra Belacqua, and in that child lies the fate of the future. And as the waters rise around them, powerful adversaries conspire for mastery of Dust: salvation to some, the source of infinite corruption to others.

The National Theatre has today announced its programming until the start of next year with productions on all three South Bank stages as well as three major UK tours, two productions on Broadway, a return to cinemas, and a new feature film to be broadcast on television this autumn. In the week the theatre reopened for audiences again, six new productions were announced, and five productions halted by the pandemic were confirmed to return to the South Bank.  

Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Jonathan Church Theatre Productions will present COPENHAGEN by Michael Frayn, which will open at Theatre Royal Bath for three weeks from 9 June before touring to Southampton, Malvern, Cambridge, and Kingston-Upon-Thames.

Rose Theatre has announced it is reopening its doors once again on 27 June 2021. Following three national lockdowns, the Rose is reopening to the public with a series of summer shows and events, including The International Youth Arts Festival by Creative Youth from 1 July 2021 and more.

Simon Russell Beale will play JS Bach in the world premiere of Nina Raine's Bach & Sons, directed by Nicholas Hytner.  Performances at The Bridge are from 23 June – 9 September 2021 with opening night on 29 June 2021. 

Theatre Royal Bath will reopen on 3 December with a revised performance schedule for Oleanna and Copenhagen, the final two plays in the theatre’s Welcome Back Season.

Casting has been announced for David Mamet's Oleanna, the final play in Theatre Royal Bath's Welcome Back Season this Autumn. The provocative drama will play in the theatre's main house from Wednesday 25 November to Saturday 12 December with press night on Wednesday 2 December 2020.

Hurrah for the green shoots in our beleaguered industry. Lots of venues are mounting new shows and bringing back our favourites over the next few weeks and months - albeit with social distancing and safety measures in place. Here are some of the live theatrical goodies on offer.