Hampstead Theatre announces new spring season

Hampstead Theatre has unveiled its spring 2024 season.

In conjunction with the announcement, the theatre is launching a £1.25 million fundraising campaign, named #HampsteadAhead, to support its commitment to nurturing, commissioning, and producing new plays.

The upcoming season will showcase four world premieres, one UK premiere, and one English language premiere. Playwrights contributing include April De Angelis, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Christopher Hampton, Richard Nelson, Sarah Power, and Richard Molloy.

The season kicks off with the world premiere of The Divine Mrs S by April De Angelis, a play celebrating the legendary 18th-century theatre actress Sarah Siddons. Anna Mackmin directs, and it runs from 22 March to 27 April.

The Donmar Warehouse’s outgoing artistic director Michael Longhurst, returning to Hampstead Theatre, will direct the UK premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Between Riverside and Crazy. Playing from 3 May to 15 June, it tells the tale of an ex-cop who fills his apartment with an array of ex-criminals.

The main stage programme concludes with Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s short story, Visit from an Unknown Woman, directed by Clare Lizzimore. The show, playing from 21 June to 27 July, is set in Austria in the 1930s, where a famed author has his perfect life disrupted.

The Hampstead Downstairs programme features school-set Grud, the debut play by Sarah Power (directed by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart and running from 28 June to 3 August), and the world premiere of Richard Molloy’s The Harmony Test, a follow-up to his Olivier Award-nominated Every Day I Make Greatness Happen. That plays from 17 May to 22 June, and explores a series of couples at different stages of life.

Olivier Award-winner Richard Nelson contributes to the season with the world premiere of An Actor Convalescing In Devon, performed by Paul Jesson and directed by Clarissa Brown in collaboration with Nelson. It follows an actor who reminisces about his life while taking a train to the West Country, and plays from 5 April to 11 May.

The #HampsteadAhead campaign aims to raise £1.25 million to support the theatre’s dedication to new plays, playwrights, and offering ticket subsidies to young audiences. The campaign has already received a substantial boost with £1 million pledged by a group of supporters and trustees. Notable artists, including Tamsin Greig, David Suchet, Jemma Redgrave, and Roy Williams OBE, are supporting the campaign.