Apex Predator, Personal Values, House of Games, Letters from Max – Hampstead Theatre has unveiled its Spring 2025 season, with two world premieres on the slate.
Running from March to June, the new season will see writers John Donnelly and Chloë Lawrence-Taylor make their Hampstead debuts alongside two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Sarah Ruhl and Richard Bean.
The genre-busting Apex Predator, by Donnelly, will have its world premiere directed by Blanche McIntyre (The Invention of Love), running on the Main Stage from Saturday March 22 – Saturday, April 26.
Mia is going out of her mind in a flat with a baby that won’t feed. Her son Alfie’s getting bullied at school; her husband Tom is working all hours for the police on a job he can’t talk about; the neighbour keeps blasting music at 2am; and another body has been found in the Thames.
As Mia desperately looks for something in her life she can control, Alfie’s teacher Ana proposes an unconventional route to empowerment – and suddenly the hunted becomes the hunter…
Lawrence-Taylor’s Personal Values will also have its world premiere at Hampstead, directed by Lucy Morrison. Running Downstairs from Friday, April 11 – Saturday, May 17, it is described as a perceptive, poignant and witty look at sisterhood and the enduring strength of even frayed family ties.
Veda and Bea haven’t spoken since their Dad’s funeral; not since Bea scratched something obscene into the bonnet of Veda’s cherished convertible. But one wet Tuesday morning, Veda shows up out of the blue on Bea’s doorstep, determined to break down the walls built by so many things left unsaid. But before they can do that, there’s the small matter of the physical walls Bea has surrounded herself with – walls made of newspapers, suitcases, cutlery, commodes, keyboards and hundreds, likely thousands, of bags-for-life…
Bean has adapted David Mamet’s noir thriller House of Games, directed by Jonathan Kent. It will run on the Main Stage from Friday May 2 – Saturday, June 7.
Celebrated psychoanalyst and author Dr Margaret Ford has a new client. Billy needs help: he’s addicted to sex, drugs and, most dangerously, gambling big money at an illicit poker lounge, the House of Games. Dr Ford also happens to be in search of subject matter for her next best-seller – a search which takes her deep into Chicago’s underworld and into the path of Mike, a charismatic gambler. A complex game commences, in which even the players themselves don’t know the rules, their roles, or who will be left holding the trump card…
Finally, McIntyre also directs the European premiere of Ruhl’s Letters from Max, based on the book by Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo. It will play Downstairs from Friday, May 23 – Saturday, June 28.
Max Ritvo is an exceptional young man. At just twenty years old, he’s a student at Yale, performing in an experimental comedy troupe, and writing poetry containing wisdom and insight far beyond his years. Eager to explore writing in all its forms, Max applies to Sarah Ruhl’s playwriting workshop. And in Sarah, he quickly realises he has found not only a mentor, but a friend.
When Max finds out his childhood cancer has returned, the two correspond continually – pursuing an understanding of life and of art and sharing their innermost thoughts with honesty and generosity. Based on their real communications, Letters from Max is a rich mosaic of letters, poetry, music and dialogue that tests theatre’s ability to express the ineffable.
Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, February 7, with early booking for Patrons and Friends. Details: hampsteadtheatre.com