Almeida announces winter 2015/16 season

The Almeida Theatre has announced its winter 2015/16 season. The theatre will continue reinvigorate the classics with a fresh take on two of the 19th century’s greatest playwrights. 

Richard Eyre follows his celebrated productions of Hedda Gabler and Ghosts with a new translation of Ibsen’s Little Eyolf. The production will open on 26th November 2015 (previews from 19 November) and run until 9th January 2016.

Jolyon Coy and Lydia Leonard lead a cast which also includes Sam Hazeldine, Eve Ponsonby and Eileen Walsh. Design is by Tim Hatley with lighting by Peter Mumford, sound by John Leonard, video by Jon Driscoll and casting by Cara Beckinsale.

In other news, as Robert Icke's production of Oresteia transfers to the West End he will take on Chekhov with a new version of Uncle Vanya. The show will open on 12th February (previews from 5th February) and run until 26th March 2016. Paul Rhys makes his Almeida debut in the title role.

Artistic Director Rupert Goold says: "We follow our Almeida Greeks with a double-header of late nineteenth-century masterpieces by two of the world's most important and influential playwrights. Written less than five years apart, these plays offer startlingly fresh reflections on our lives and our theatre - and how we can understand them.

"First Richard Eyre follows his Hedda Gabler and Ghosts with a new production of Ibsen's surreal and moving play Little Eyolf. Ibsen's play is something formally more complex and contemporary than the Victorian naturalism with which he is associated: drawing instead on Norwegian folklore and symbolism, late Ibsen is a stranger, richer playwright than we might expect.

"Chekhov hasn't been performed at the Almeida in over a decade, and though Uncle Vanya was written less than five years after Little Eyolf, its focus on the minutiae of human lives never seems less than surprisingly modern. As his masterful Oresteia transfers to the West End, I'm thrilled that our Associate Director, Robert Icke, will be taking on Chekhov for the first time at the Almeida."

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