Polly Findlay will direct Roger Allam and Colin Morgan in Caryl Churchill’s play A Number at the Bridge Theatre.  Previews begin on 14 February 2020 with the opening night on 19 February and final performance on 14 March 2020.  Booking opens today to Bridge Priority members; public booking opens at 10am on 22 November 2019.

Designs are by Lizzie Clachan with lighting by Peter Mumford, sound by Carolyn Downing, music by Marc Tritschler and casting by Robert Sterne.

 How might a son feel to discover that he is only one of a number of identical copies? What happens when a father is confronted by the results of an outrageous genetic experiment?

Roger Allam, who plays the father, Salter, is best known on television as Fred Thursday in the ITV series Endeavour.  He has a wide and extensive range of work in film, TV, theatre and radio.  On stage he has played Macbeth and created the role of Javert in Les Misérables for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  He played Prospero and Falstaff for Shakespeare’s Globe, and has appeared in many productions for the National Theatre including Summerfolk and most recently Rutherford and Son.  He starred in Aladdin at the Old Vic, the musicals City of Angels and La Cages Aux Folles, as well as Art and Boeing Boeing in the West End.  His film credits include The Queen, Tamara Drewe, The Lady In The Van and The Hippopotamus.  His television credits include Parades End, The Missing and The Thick of It for the BBC.  His many radio credits include Cabin Pressure, the Government Inspector, and How Does That Make You Feel?

Colin Morgan, who plays all of Salter’s sons, was last on stage at the Old Vic in All My Sons. His previous theatre credits include Translations at the National Theatre, Gloria at Hampstead Theatre and Mojo at the Harold Pinter Theatre. His television credits include Humans, The Fall, The Living and The Dead, Merlin for which he was the recipient of the Best Drama Performance at the National Television Awards. On film his credits include The Happy Prince, Benjamin, Testament of Youth.

Caryl Churchill’s playwriting credits include Owners, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Traps, Cloud Nine, Top Girls, Fen, Serious Money, Ice Cream, Mad Forest, The Skriker, Blue Heart, This is a Chair, Far Away, A Dream Play, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, Seven Jewish Children, Love and Information, Here We Go, Pigs and Dogs, Escaped Alone and Glass.Kill.Bluebeard.Imp. Her Music theatre credits include Lives of the Great Poisoners and Hotel, both with Orlando Gough. Caryl Churchill has also written for radio and television.

Polly Findlay’s more recent directing credits include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Limehouse for the Donmar Warehouse, The Alchemist and The Merchant of Venice for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Rutherford and Son, Beginning and As You Like It for the National Theatre.

A Number won Best Play at the 2002 Evening Standard Drama Awards. 

PHILIP PULLMAN’S

T H E   B O O K   O F   D U S T  –   L A   B E L L E   S A U V A G E

IN A NEW STAGE ADAPTION BY BRYONY LAVERY

TO BE DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS HYTNER

 Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage will be directed by Nicholas Hytner in Bryony Lavery’s new stage adaptation.  Designs are by Bob Crowley, video designs by Luke Halls, lighting design by Bruno Poet, puppetry by Barnaby Dixon and music by Grant Olding.  The associate directors are Emily Burns and James Cousins who is also movement director.  Casting will be announced at a later date.

Previews begin on 11 July with opening night on 23 July. The final performance will be on 10 October 2020. Booking opens today for Priority members and public booking opens at 10am on 22 November 2019.

La Belle Sauvage takes place twelve years before Pullman’s epic His Dark Materials trilogy.

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.

 La Belle Sauvage was published in 2017 and was followed last month by The Secret Commonwealth.  His Dark Materials, which had a ground-breaking production sixteen years ago by Hytner at the National Theatre, is currently being broadcast on BBC1. Philip Pullman was knighted this year for his services to literature.

For the stage Bryony Lavery’s work includes the internationally critically acclaimed Frozen as well as Stockholm, Kursk, Dirt and Beautiful Burnout.  Last year her adaptation of David Walliams’ The Midnight Gang was presented at Chichester Festival Theatre where her previous adaptations The Hundred and One Dalmatians and A Christmas Carol were also seen.

Nicholas Hytner co-founded the London Theatre Company with Nick Starr.  He was Director of the National Theatre from 2003 to 2015, where the productions he directed included The History Boys, Hamlet, One Man, Two Guvnors, and Othello.  His films include The Madness of George III, The Lady in the Van and The History Boys.  His book Balancing Acts is published by Jonathan Cape. For The Bridge, Hytner has directed Young Marx, Julius Caesar, Allelujah!, Alys, Always, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Two Ladies. 

 MARIANNE ELLIOTT AND STEVEN HOGGETT TO DIRECT

PAULA VOGEL’S NEW PLAY

T H E Y   S H O O T   H O R S E S ,   D O N ’ T   T H E Y ?

Marianne Elliott and Steven Hoggett will direct They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? in Paula Vogel’s new play based on the novel by Horace McCoy.  Previewing at The Bridge Theatre from 31 October 2020 with opening night on 17 November, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? will run until 30 January 2021.  Booking opens today to Bridge Priority members and public booking opens at 10am on 22 November 2019.

Set design is by Bob Crowley with music by Charlotte and Mike Truman and casting by Charlotte Sutton.  Casting will be announced at a later date.

 They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is a co-production between London Theatre Company and Elliott & Harper Productions, Brandon Millan and Rick Sparks.

The real-life dance marathons of Depression-era America could last weeks, even months. Paula Vogel’s new play is based on Horace McCoy’s classic story of ambition, desperation and determination. In Marianne Elliott and Steve Hoggett’s production, the Bridge will be transformed into a 1930s dance hall. Seating in the pit will offer audience the chance to join the dance via a ballot.

American playwright Paula Vogel received the Pulitzer Prize for her play How I Learned to Drive. Her other plays include Indencent (Tony Award Nomination for Best Play) The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot ‘N’ Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession, and A Civil War Christmas.

 Marianne Elliott most recently co-directed Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (alongside Miranda Cromwell) at the Young Vic which, following its West End transfer, is currently playing at the Piccadilly Theatre.  Previously Elliott directed the award-winning production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company which transfers to Broadway next year and the West End premiere of Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle for Elliott & Harper.  During her time as Associate Director at the National Theatre her award-winning productions include Angels in America, War Horse (co-directed with Tom Morris) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  She was previously Artistic Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre and has also directed for the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Vic and the Donmar Warehouse.

Steven Hoggett was most recently the movement director for Ocean at the End of the Lane at the National Theatre. His previous credits for the National Theatre include Pinocchio, Light Princess, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (also on Broadway and West End), Dido Queen of Carthage, The Hot House and Market Boy. His West End theatre credits include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre (also performed internationally), Close To You – Bacharach Reimagined at the Piccadilly The Twits at the Royal Court and Once at the Phoenix Theatre (also performed on Broadway). His Broadway theatre credits include Joan of Arc: Into the Fire at the Public Theatre, The Crucible at the Walter Herr Theatre, Angels in America and The Last Ship  at the Neil Simon Theatre, Rocky at the Winter Gardens The Glass Menagerie at A.R.T and the Booth Theatre, Peter and the Starcatcher at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre and American Idiot at the St James Theatre. Opera includes Rigoletto at the Met. Hoggett was a founding co-artistic director of Frantic Assembly for which his credits include The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Lovesong, Othello, Little Dogs, Beautiful Burnout, Stockholm, Pool (No Water) and Dirty Wonderland. His film credits include How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Freak Show.

 Elliott & Harper Productions was founded in 2016 by Marianne Elliott, Chris Harper and Nick Sidi.  Elliott & Harper’s London production of Company at the Gielgud will transfer to Broadway, opening at The Bernard Jacobs Theatre in March 2020. Their other recent credits include the highly acclaimed co-production of Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic Theatre (directed by Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell) which is now playing in the West End.  Elliott & Harper co-produced the Broadway transfer of the National Theatre’s production of Angels in America directed by Marianne Elliott.  Other productions include Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle at the Wyndham’s Theatre directed by Marianne Elliott and their production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, directed by Sally Cookson at the Leeds Playhouse and now in previews at The Bridge.

Rick Sparks is the recipient of 20 American theatre awards. He directed and adapted I Love Lucy Live On Stage for its long running American regional sit-downs and national tours. This followed producing & directing A Clockwork Orange (Drama Critics’ Circle Award), Psycho Beach Party (L.A. premiere), Clutter, Highballs Ahoy!, Sheila Sands Live At The Roxy co-produced by Lily Tomlin and Off-Broadway’s Down South.  Sparks may be best known for his critically acclaimed adaptation & direction of They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, which galloped away as the commercial and critical hit of its Los Angeles season. As an actor, his Broadway credits include Cats, Les Misérables and Sunset Boulevard.

 SIMON RUSSELL BEALE TO PLAY

J O H N   G A B R I E L   B O R K M A N

IN A NEW VERSION OF IBSEN’S CLASSIC BY LUCINDA COXON

 Simon Russell Beale will play the title role in Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman at the Bridge Theatre.  Directed by Nicholas Hytner and in a new version by Lucinda Coxon, John Gabriel Borkman will have its first performance on 11 February 2021 with opening night on 18 February 2021 with the run concluding on 17 April 2021.  Designs are by Vicki Mortimer.  Booking opens today for Bridge Priority members and public booking is from 10am on 22 November 2019.   Further casting and the full creative team will be announced at a later date.

 John Gabriel Borkman, once an illustrious entrepreneur, has been brought low by a prison sentence for fraud. As he paces alone in an upstairs room, bankrupt and disgraced, he is obsessed by dreams of his comeback. Downstairs, his estranged wife plots the restoration of the family name. When her sister arrives unannounced, she triggers a desperate showdown with the past.

Simon Russell Beale has most recently been seen on stage in The Lehman Trilogy at the National Theatre and in the West End with the production due to open on Broadway in March next year.  His previous credits for the National Theatre include King Lear, 50 Years on Stage, Timon of Athens, Collaborators, London Assurance, Major Barbara, Much Ado About Nothing, The Life of Galileo, The Alchemist, Jumpers  also West End and New York, Humble Boy also in the West End, Hamlet, Battle Royal, Candide, Summerfolk, Money, Othello, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Volpone.  For the Royal Shakespeare Company his credits include The Tempest, King Lear, Ghosts, the title roles in Richard III and Edward II, The Seagull, Troilus and Cressida, The Man of Mode and Restoration. In the West End his credits include Monty Python’s Spamalot, Privates on Parade and Death Trap. On television his credits include Vanity Fair, Legacy, Parkinson: Masterclass, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Spooks, John Adams, Dunkirk, The Young Visiters, Great Historians: Gibbon, A Dance to the Music of Time, Persuasion and The Mushroom Pickers and on film The Death of Stalin, My Week with Marilyn, The Deep Blue Sea, The Gathering, Alice in Wonderland, An Ideal Husband, The Temptation of Franz Schubert and Hamlet.

 Lucinda Coxon previously collaborated with Nicholas Hytner at The Bridge on the world premiere of Alys, Always.  Her other theatre writing credits include Herding Cats, Happy Now, The Eternal Not, Nostalgia, The Shoemaker’s Wife, Vesuvius, Wishbones, Three Graces, The Ice Palace and Waiting at the Water’s Edge.  Her screen writing credits include the award-winning The Danish Girl starring Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, The Little Stranger starring Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson, The Crimson Petal and The White starring Romola Garai for the BBC, Wild Target starring Emily Blunt and The Heart of Me starring Paul Bettany and Helena Bonham-Carter.

Nicholas Hytner directs.  His previous collaborations with Simon Russell Beale include The Alchemist, Much Ado About Nothing, Major Barbara, Collaborators, London Assurance and Timon of Athens at the National Theatre.