Hall’s Propeller Errors & Richard Hit Hampstead

New writing house Hampstead Theatre will present Shakespeare for the first time when artistic director Edward Hall brings his all-male Propeller theatre productions of The Comedy of Errors and Richard III to the venue for a three-week London season this June as part of an international tour.

Performed by the same cast, the two productions will run in rep at Hampstead from 24 June to 9 July 2011 (previews from 22 June). The engagement pits Propeller’s Richard III head-to-head this summer with Sam Mendes’ Bridge Project production of the play, which stars Kevin Spacey and opens at the Old Vic on 29 June (previews from 18 June).

Company regular Richard Clothier, seen last year at Hampstead in Shelagh Stephenson’s Enlightenment, also directed by Hall, takes the title role in the Propeller Richard III. Other members of the Propeller company include: Dugald Bruce-Lockhart, Tony Bell, Robert Hands, Chris Myles, John Dougall, Dominic Tighe, Kelsey Brookfield, Thomas Padden, Jon Trenchard, David Newman, Sam Swainsbury, Richard Frame and Wayne Cater.

The Propeller productions are both directed by Edward Hall and designed by Michael Pavelka, with lighting by Ben Ormerod. Currently on tour, the productions are in Newcastle this week and then visit Coventry, Norwich, Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Salford, the company’s former home base at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury (13-30 April) and Plymouth. There are also international dates in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Boston, Neuss and Galway and, for The Comedy of Errors, at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music (16-27 March).

Hall, the son of the Royal Shakespeare Company founder Sir Peter Hall, established Propeller in 1997. He continues to run the company since also taking over as artistic director of London’s Hampstead Theatre last year.