Gate Theatre announces 40th anniversary season

West London's Gate Theatre has announced its 40th anniversary season.

The venue's artistic director Ellen McDougall has released plans for two UK premieres, four world premieres and more from October 2019 through to May 2020.

Kicking off the season in October is Mephisto (Rhapsodie), by Samuel Gallet, translated from French by Chris Campbell. Kirsty Housley directs the piece, which is adapted from the novel by Klaus Mann and is set in the town of Balbek where the far right are about to seize power. The play is a contemporary response to Mann's cult novel and is based on the real life story of Gustaf Gründgens. The show runs from 3 to 26 October and is designed by Basia Bińkowska.

In Land Without Dreams, which runs from 14 November to 7th December, climate change is the focus, as a woman from the future arrives to tell the audience they need to stop dreaming. Copenhagen-based company Fix&Foxy stage the UK premiere directed and written by Tue Biering and directed in London by Lise Lauenblad.

Faces in the Crowd, based on Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli's debut novel, will make its world premiere at the Gate Theatre, with McDougal directing the piece, which runs from 16 January to 18 February 2020. Faces in the Crowd intertwines three narratives, a mother writing her first novel in Mexico City, a woman in New York haunted by the ghost of a Mexican poet and a poet, 100 years earlier, who is troubled by visions of a woman on the subway.

Trainers or, the Brutal Unpleasant Atmosphere of this Most Disagreeable Season: a Theatrical Essay looks at a relationship between two men in the 1500s and a meeting of two queer radicals in the second American Civil War. Sylvan Oswald's piece runs from 27 February to 21 March 2020.

The world premiere of Derek Walcott's Omeros will run from 7 to 30 May 2020. The piece is directed by Elayce Ismail and developed with Paterson Joseph. It is a re-imagining of Homer's Iliad as fishermen on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia.

A new piece from Gate associate artist Rosie Elnile, Prayer, will run in summer 2020 and looks to create something communal and hopeful that re-imagines our relationship with nature, bodies and public spaces.

Elsewhere at the Gate, there will be 40 years in 40 weeks, a celebration of the artists who have made work at the Gate, in partnership with Royal Holloway University and curated by Madhia Hussain and Yunique Enim Adusei.

The Gate has also released its Manifesto for Our Future, which can be read here.

McDougall said: "Programming a season that celebrates the formidable and trailblazing 40 year history of the Gate is a challenging and exciting prospect. Throughout its existence the Gate has been forward looking and anti-establishment. It has always looked outwards, working with international artists and stories, and it has always supported artists at an early stage of their careers. So the most appropriate way to celebrate our history seems to me to be to look forward. Our Manifesto For Our Future is a way to share the thinking that underpins our work."