Theatre News

Jermyn Street Theatre announces American season

The season includes the first UK production of Eugene O’Neill’s ‘lost’ play ”Exorcism”

Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill

The Jermyn Street Theatre has announced full details of its American season this autumn.

As previously reported, the season opens with the London premiere of Off-Broadway musical See What I Wanna See by Michael John LaChiusa, which runs from 8 September to 3 October 2015.

It's followed by the UK premiere of Eugene O'Neill's early work The First Man, which runs from 6 to 31 October and is directed by Jermyn Street Theatre artistic director Anthony Biggs.

It will be accompanied by the first UK production of O'Neill's "long lost" one act play Exorcism, directed by Grace Wessels.

Written in 1919 O'Neill pulled the play after a few performances of its premiere and destroyed all the copies he could find. Rediscovered in 2003, Exorcism tells the story of a young man who, down on his luck and living in a tawdry NY rooming house with his alcoholic roommate, is forced to stage a humiliating event in order to escape his miserable marriage. Performances are on 15, 22 and 29 October at 3.30pm.

The season concludes from 3 to 21 November with another UK premiere, Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel. Set in the girls' locker room of a Florida high school, the four-hander, which premiered in New York last September, explores an unlikely friendship that is put to the most extreme of tests.

Artistic director Anthony Biggs said of the season: "Jermyn Street theatre has a reputation for discovering and rediscovering truly great theatre for a contemporary audience and I am immensely proud to continue in this tradition."