Hampstead Theatre has announced its 2023/24 season with a run of eight new productions set to start this September.
The season includes three world premieres on the main stage: Anthropology by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Anna Ledwich; To Have and To Hold by Richard Bean, directed Richard Wilson; and Double Feature by John Logan, directed by Jonathan Kent.
A further three world premieres and a UK premiere will play in Hampstead Downstairs: Octopolis by Marek Horn, directed by Ed Madden; Nineteen Gardens by Magdalena Miecznicka, directed by Alice Hamilton; This Much I Know by Jonathan Spector, directed by Chelsea Walker and Out of Season by Neil D’Souza, also directed by Alice Hamilton.
Completing the season is Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, directed by Nina Raine.
Tickets are now on sale.
The programme for autumn 2023 marks a new future for Hampstead Theatre following Arts Council England’s decision to cut its NPO grant by 100 per cent. Hampstead’s future and renewed commitment to present ambitious original work will be driven by ticket sales, commercial income and philanthropic support.
Here’s more about the new season:
HAMPSTEAD THEATRE MAIN STAGE
Anthropology
By Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Anna Ledwich
September 7 – October 14, 2023
Merril is one of Silicon Valley’s leading software engineers, but her life disintegrates when her younger sister Angie vanishes on her way home from college. A year later, when the police have long abandoned their search, Merril assembles all the digital material Angie has left behind and sets about building herself a digital simulation of her sister. The resultant ‘virtual Angie’ offers her some solace – until, that is, it starts to reveal new details about the real Angie’s disappearance.
To Have and To Hold
By Richard Bean
Directed by Richard Wilson
October 20 – November 25
After sixty years of marriage, happily settled into their retirement village in Yorkshire, Jack and Florence have elevated bickering almost to the status of high art. That said, they’re otherwise getting along fine with the support of a cousin and the hilarious interventions of the man known locally as ‘Rhubarb Eddie’. But will their anxious son, shuttling between London and LA, and their errant daughter, contemplating a move to Australia, leave them to live out their days in peace?
Rock ‘n’ Roll
By Tom Stoppard
Directed by Nina Raine
December 6 – January 27
1968: Russian tanks have rolled into Czechoslovakia, and Syd Barrett has been dumped by Pink Floyd. Jan, a visiting postgrad at Cambridge, breaks with his old professor Max, a Marxist philosopher, and heads home to Prague with his suitcase full of “socially negative music”. Rock ’n’ Roll covers the ensuing 21 years in the lives of three generations of Max’s family while Jan is caught in the spiral of dissidence in a Communist police state. But it’s a love story too – and then there’s the music…
Double Feature
By John Logan
Directed by Jonathan Kent
February 8 – March 16
1964/1967. In a rented cottage in Suffolk, a brilliant young film director, deep in making his magnum opus, confronts the ageing star that the studio has imposed on him. Vincent Price is about to walk out on the film, and Michael Reeves’ career hangs by a thread. Across the world, in a strange simulacrum of a Suffolk cottage created on a Hollywood lot, a great director and his star are engaged in a very different sort of power-game, as Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren take time off from making Marnie for one final confrontation.
HAMPSTEAD DOWNSTAIRS
Octopolis
By Marek Horn
Directed by Ed Madden
September 15 – October 28
Professor George Grey is a brilliant behavioural biologist who, alongside her recently deceased husband, became world-renowned for her pioneering research into octopus intelligence. Mainly the intelligence of one particular octopus, in fact: Frances, who still resides in a large, purpose-built tank in George’s campus accommodation.
Into this house of grief walks Harry – an ambitious anthropologist, despatched by the university with permission to test his breath-taking new theory on Frances. The nature of his assignment is shocking to George, and threatens to tear her world apart in more ways than one.
Nineteen Gardens
By Magdalena Miecznicka
Directed by Alice Hamilton
November 3 – December 9
Nearly two years after the end of their affair, John and Aga meet once more. Each has filled the void left by the other: he has withdrawn into his world of wealth and privilege; she has found herself working as a chambermaid to support her family. Both recognise that the spark between them is still there. Will they rekindle what they had, or is an altogether darker game about to be played out?
This Much I Know
By Jonathan Spector
Directed by Chelsea Walker
December 13 – January 27
A tenured professor of psychology, Lukesh enjoys a life as organised and logical as his mind. But then his wife vanishes, sending only a text message by way of explanation and leaving him to re-evaluate their relationship. He discovers she has embarked on an epic odyssey, crossing and recrossing Russia and delving deep into Soviet history on a quest to unravel a family mystery of which he was unaware – one in which Josef Stalin himself may be involved.
Out of Season
By Neil D’Souza
Directed by Alice Hamilton
February 16 – March 23
Yes – the band is back in town! Michael, Chris and Dev are returning to Ibiza and the hotel where it all began thirty years ago. But Michael’s stuck in London, Dev’s got a bad back and Chris…well, he’s just Chris. And it turns out that none of them are in their twenties anymore! As this middle-aged trip down memory lane is about to hurtle off the tracks, Holly and Amy arrive, so down-to-earth they might just save our feckless heroes from really humiliating themselves…