Richard H. Smith News

The quirky off-Broadway hit musical Little Miss Sunshine's UK tour heads to Theatre Royal Brighton from Tue 11 - Sat 15 June.

Polly Stenham's updating of Strindberg's Miss Julie moves the action to contemporary London, and finds both contempt and sympathy for this new version of the idle rich. But, shorn of its 19th-century context, the play struggles to make the class transgression feel dangerous, nor does this 85-minute piece dwell long enough on subjects like racism or sexism.

Miss Julie finds a new home in contemporary London. Wild and newly single, Julie throws a late night party. In the kitchen, Jean and Kristina clean up as the celebration heaves above them. Crossing the threshold, Julie initiates a power game with Jean. It descends into a savage fight for survival.

The latest instalment of LET THERE BE LIGHT, our series showcasing some of Britain's best theatrical lighting designers, focuses on Lucy Carter. A regular collaborator with Wayne McGregor, as well as numerous other leading choreographers and dance companies, she's also worked on operas and plays, including Husbands & Sons at the National Theatre and Oil, currently playing at the Almeida.

You have to admire the grand scope of Ella Hickson's long-gestating new play, which grapples with urgent ideas about this vital but declining resource amidst audacious magic realist time travel. Stretching from 19th-century Cornwall to a dystopian future, it's DH Lawrence meets Black Mirror, by way of David Hare - anchored by insightful deconstruction of the mother/daughter relationship. If it becomes unwieldy in places, it's still a rich and absorbing piece of work, and an all-too-rare female odyssey.

Lonny Price will direct Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson in Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler'sSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Musical Thriller, the first production in a major new long term partnership between English National Opera (ENO) and the GradeLinnit Company.

Rufus Norris' production of James Baldwin's The Amen Corner opened at the National Theatre and follows the life of Sister Margaret, a pastor of a Harlem church. It stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Eric Kofi Abrefa and Sharon D Clarke.

Natalie Dormer, leading actress in HBO's Game of Thrones and BBC dramas The Tudors and Silk, has been cast in the title role of AFTER MISS JULIE by Patrick Marber, which plays 15th March to 14th April at the Young Vic.