London
Trevor Nunn opens the programme with three Samuel Beckett plays
Jermyn Street Theatre has announced its 2020 season, the first time the venue presents a full year of programming in its 25-year history. The venue will include a world premiere by Peter Gill alongside his version of Three Sisters, a triple bill of Samuel Beckett plays directed by Trevor Nunn and Michael Pennington in The Tempest.
Nunn will open the season with three of Beckett's works – Krapp's Last Tape, Eh Joe and The Old Tune – from 15 January to 8 February. Lisa Dwan, James Hayes, Niall Buggy and David Threlfall star in this triptych, the latter of which sees its first London production since the 1960s. Nunn commented: "The focus of these plays is Beckett's fascination with memory. All three are universal but also emphatically Irish."
The theatre will play three world premieres in 2020 – Paul Minx's The Dog Walker from 12 February to 7 March, Gill's new version of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters from 9 September to 3 October and Gill's Something In The Air from 7 to 31 October. A European premiere of Edward Einhorn's The Marriage of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein, which premiered off-Broadway in 2017 and plays from 20 May to 20 June, completes the new productions.
Littler returns to direct Shakespeare's The Tempest from 11 March to 4 April, before Alan Ayckbourn's first major success – Relatively Speaking – will play from 21 April to 16 May. Ayckbourn reunites with his long-term collaborator, director Robin Herford (The Woman In Black), for the show as it transfers from The Mill At Sonning.
Sarah Ruhl's Orlando is adapted from the Virginia Woolf novel and directed by Stella Powell-Jones from 24 June to 18 July, with After Darwin from 4 to 28 November and The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary! from 2 December to 16 January 2021 completing the season.
Artistic director Tom Littler said of the season: "It has been a pleasure and a privilege to assemble this year of work, bringing together vibrant undiscovered talents with some of the world's most respected directors, actors, and playwrights. Jermyn Street Theatre continues to be an intimate home for drama of the highest quality."