BLOODSPORT: AFTER HELEN OF TROY 2026

After discussing gossip and patriarchy with Anne Boleyn in 1536, Ava Pickett keeps exploring the female spheres through the figure of Helen of Troy in Bloodsport. The war is over, and Helen has returned home. She has been brought back home, to be specific. Her husband is ecstatic, but her former best friend and confidante, Cee, doesn’t take the news well. Pickett reframes the Trojan War, setting it in contemporary Essex, in a play that raises a multitude of intersectionally feminist questions. 

A new trailer has been released for writer Ava Pickett’s Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy, directed by Stratford East Artistic Director Lisa Spirling. Check out the video here!

New rehearsal photos have been released, giving a first look at award-winning writer Ava Pickett’s Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy, ahead of its world premiere at Stratford East. Check out the photos here!

Full casting has been announced for Ava Pickett's BLOODSPORT, set to run at Stratford East this autumn. Learn more about the show and the cast for the production here.

Michelle Dockery, best known for her role in Downtown Abbey as Lady Mary Crawley, will return to the stage at Statford East in Bloodsport: Before Helen of Troy, a new play written by Ava Pickett.