The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre

Studio Theatre

A studio theatre is a 20th-century term that describes a small theatre space. Studio theatres often have a flexible auditorium whose stage and seating may be re-arranged to suit the specific requirements of a production...

 with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street

A1 road (London)

The A1 road in London is an A road in North London. It runs from London Wall to Bignell's Corner, where it crosses the M25 and becomes the A1 motorway, alternating with the A1 as it continues to Edinburgh. The London section of the road passes through four London Boroughs: the City of London,...

, in the London Borough of Islington

London Borough of Islington

The London Borough of Islington is a London borough in Inner London. It was formed in 1965 by merging the former metropolitan boroughs of Islington and Finsbury. The borough contains two Westminster parliamentary constituencies, Islington North and Islington South & Finsbury...

. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of contemporary opera, music and theatre. Successful plays are often transferred to West End theatre

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

s.

Early history

The theatre was built in 1837 for the newly formed Islington Literary and Scientific Society and included a library, reading room, museum, laboratory, and a lecture theatre seating 500. The architects were the fashionable partnership of Robert Lewis Roumieu

Robert Lewis Roumieu

Robert Lewis Roumieu, otherwise R.L. Roumieu, was a Victorian architect best known for 33-35 Eastcheap, London EC3.Born in 1814, Roumieu was of Huguenot descent and his middle name is occasionally spelled "Louis"...

 and Alexander Dick Gough. The library was sold off in 1872 and the building disposed of in 1874 to the Wellington Club—Almeida Street was then called Wellington Street—which occupied it until 1886. In 1885 the hall was used for concerts, balls, and public meetings. The Salvation Army

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....

 bought the building in 1890, renaming it the Wellington Castle Barracks (Wellington Castle Citadel from 1902). To suit the building's new purpose, the front-facing lecture hall's tiered benches were replaced so that the congregation was seated in the conventional position, facing away from the front, and a balcony added. The Salvationists remained there until 1955. For a few years from 1956 the building was a factory and showroom for Beck's British Carnival Novelties, then remained empty until in 1972 a campaign began to turn it into a theatre.

The building was Grade II listed by English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 in 1972. The current modified building retains the listing.

Foundation of the theatre

The campaign to open the building as a theatre was led by the Lebanese-born internationally renowned opera and theatre director Pierre Audi

Pierre Audi

Pierre Audi is a French-Lebanese theatre director and artistic director.Pierre Audi is the son of the Lebanese banker Raymond Audi and Andrée Michel Fattal, the eldest of three children. Audi's family were originally from originally from Saida, but he attended the French Lycée in Beirut...

, after he had acquired the derelict building in 1972.
A public appeal was launched and in 1980, with the building renovated, the theatre opened with a festival of avant-garde theatre and music, held both there and at other Islington venues, with Audi as the Artistic Director.

Under Audi the theatre's reputation grew and its annual summer International Festival of Contemporary Music and Performance (now known as Almeida Opera) became highly regarded. In the summer of 1985 Ástor Piazzolla

Ástor Piazzolla

Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...

, the renowned Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 tango

Tango music

Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...

 composer and bandoneón

Bandoneón

The bandoneón is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It plays an essential role in the orquesta típica, the tango orchestra...

 player, made a week long appearance with his Quinteto Tango Nuevo. Peter Greenaway

Peter Greenaway

Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular...

's 1983 series of films for Channel 4 Four American Composers featured Almeida presentations of works by Robert Ashley

Robert Ashley

Robert Ashley , is a contemporary American composer, best known for his operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. Along with Gordon Mumma, Ashley was also a major pioneer of audio synthesis.Ashley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan...

, John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

, and Philip Glass

Philip Glass

Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...

 and a Dance Umbrella

Dance Umbrella

Dance Umbrella is an annual festival of new or contemporary dance held in London each October. Founded in 1978 as a showcase for emerging choreographers, Dance Umbrella now ranks highly among Europe's leading international dance festivals...

 presentation of Turtle Dreams by Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk

Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...

.

Throughout the 1980s the Almeida Theatre was a London 'receiving house

Receiving house

A receiving house is a theatre which does not produce its own repertoire but instead receives touring theatre companies, usually for a brief period such as three nights or a full week...

' for Fringe, avant-garde and provincial theatre productions. Touring companies from the UK were regularly hosted, including Shared Experience

Shared Experience

Shared Experience is a British theatre company. Its current joint artistic directors are Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale. Kate Saxon is an Associate Director.-Productions:*A Passage to India *Madame Bovary...

, Joint Stock

Joint Stock Theatre Company

The Joint Stock Theatre Company was founded in London 1974 by David Hare, Max Stafford-Clark and David Aukin. The director William Gaskill was also an important part of the company. It was primarily a new work company....

, Theatre Complicite

Complicite

The British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. "The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting...

, Cheek by Jowl

Cheek by Jowl

Cheek By Jowl is a theatre company founded by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod in 1981. The company has performed across the world and, with their 1986 production of Twelfth Night, were the first to bring a Shakespearean play to The Swan....

 and the Leicester Haymarket

Haymarket Theatre (Leicester)

The Haymarket Theatre was a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on Belgrave Gate in Leicester city centre. The theatre closed at the end of 2006 and has been replaced by the Curve Theatre...

. The Almeida also presented numerous contemporary music and performance events and productions from Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Japan, Argentina, Israel, Morocco, the Philippines, and Tibet, and also housed a producing company which commissioned and staged several theater works and operas (see list below). Among the dozens of stage directors, composers, and ensembles featured were Yuri Lyubimov

Yuri Lyubimov

Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov is a Soviet and Russian stage actor and director associated with the internationally-renowned Taganka Theatre which he founded ,...

, Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson (director)

Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...

, Robert Lepage

Robert Lepage

Robert Lepage, is a playwright, actor, film director, and stage director from Québec City, Québec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.- Life and work :...

, Phelim McDermott, Julia Bardsley, Deborah Warner

Deborah Warner

Deborah Warner CBE is a British director of theatre and opera known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her long-term working relationship with the Irish actress Fiona Shaw.-Early years:Warner was born in Oxfordshire,...

, Simon McBurney

Simon McBurney

Simon Montagu McBurney, OBE is an English actor, writer and director. He is the founder and artistic director of Théâtre de Complicité in England, now called Complicite.-Early life:...

, Annabel Arden, Yvar Mikhashoff

Yvar Mikhashoff

Yvar Emilian Mikhashoff was an American virtuoso pianist and composer...

, Michael Finnissy

Michael Finnissy

Michael Finnissy is an English composer and pianist. His music is characterised by the range of extremes often found in his work; opposing binary structures are found commonly, often seen as juxtaposing textures, register and tempi...

, Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer.Rihm is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival...

, Claude Vivier

Claude Vivier

-Biography:Born to unknown parents in Montreal, Vivier was adopted at the age of three by a poor French-Canadian family. From the age of thirteen, he attended boarding schools run by the Marist Brothers, a religious order that prepared young boys for a vocation in the priesthood. At the age of...

, Gerald Barry, Steve Reich

Steve Reich

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...

, Lou Harrison

Lou Harrison

Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison...

, Conlon Nancarrow

Conlon Nancarrow

Conlon Nancarrow was a United States-born composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. He became a Mexican citizen in 1955.Nancarrow is best remembered for the pieces he wrote for the player piano...

, Virgil Thomson

Virgil Thomson

Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...

, Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...

, Somei Satoh

Somei Satoh

Somei Satoh is a Japanese composer.In the post-Takemitsu era, Somei Satoh is a Japanese composer of contemporary traditional music ....

, Akio Suzuki, Takehisa Kosugi

Takehisa Kosugi

is a Japanese composer and violinist associated with the Fluxus movement.Kosugi studied musicology at the Tokyo University of the Arts and graduated in 1962....

, Toru Takemitsu

Toru Takemitsu

was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre...

, Jo Kondo

Jo Kondo

Jō Kondō is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music.Kondo studied composition from 1968 to 1972 with Yoshio Hasegawa and Hiroaki Minami at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He won the third prize and made his debut in Japan-Germany Contemporary Music Festival in 1969...

, Sylvano Bussotti

Sylvano Bussotti

Sylvano Bussotti is an Italian composer of contemporary music whose work is unusually notated and often creates special problems of interpretation.Born in Florence, Bussotti learned to play the violin as a child, becoming a prodigy...

, Giacinto Scelsi

Giacinto Scelsi

Giacinto Scelsi , Count of Ayala Valva was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French....

, Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...

, Luis de Pablo

Luís de Pablo

Luis de Pablo is a Spanish composer.He was born in Bilbao, living in Madrid from age six and starting to compose aged 12. Although he received composition lessons from Maurice Ohana and Max Deutsch, he was essentially an autodidact in composition...

, Capricorn, Spectrum, Music Projects/London, Singcircle, the Arditti Quartet, and the London Sinfonietta

London Sinfonietta

The London Sinfonietta is an English chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble specialises in contemporary music and works across a wide range of genres, performing modern classics alongside world premieres, and includes music by electronica artists as well as folk and...

.

Peter Brook

Peter Brook

Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...

's Bouffes du Nord

Bouffes du Nord

The Bouffes du Nord is a theater at 37 bis, boulevard de la Chapelle in the 10th arrondissement of Paris located near the Gare du Nord. It is registered as a historic monument.-History:...

 company played there in 1982, and Ronald Harwood

Ronald Harwood

Sir Ronald Harwood CBE is an author, playwright and screenwriter. He is most noted for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay...

's documentary drama, The Deliberate Death of a Polish Priest premiered at the Almeida in October 1985, an early example of a transcript of a trial of the political murderers of Father Jerzy Popieluszko

Jerzy Popieluszko

Jerzy Popiełuszko was a Roman Catholic priest from Poland, associated with the Solidarity union. He was murdered by three agents of the Polish communist internal intelligence agency, the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, who were shortly thereafter tried and convicted of the murder...

. In 1987, the Almeida also became home to Motley Theatre Design Course

Motley Theatre Design Course

Motley Theatre Design Course is a one-year independent theatre design course in London. It was founded at Sadler's Wells Opera in 1966.- Sadler's Wells Opera & English National Opera:...

, under the directorship of Margaret Harris

Margaret Harris

Margaret Frances Harris was an English theatre and opera costume and scenic designer.-Early years:Harris was born in Hayes, Kent, the fourth child and second daughter of William Birkbeck Harris, a Lloyds Insurance clerk, and his wife Kathleen Marion, née Carey...

.

The Not the RSC Festival was presented at the Almeida in 1986 and 1987.

The Almeida in the 1990s

In 1990 the Scot Ian McDiarmid

Ian McDiarmid

Ian McDiarmid is a Scottish theatre actor and director, who has also made sporadic appearances on film and television.McDiarmid has had a successful career in theatre; he has been cast in many plays, while occasionally directing others and although he has appeared mostly in theatrical productions,...

 and the South African Jonathan Kent

Jonathan Kent (director)

Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.-Early life:...

 took over as joint artistic directors.

Work by major playwrights, old and new, British and foreign was staged and the theatre acquired an artistic reputation comparable to the leading theatres in central London and, as noted by playwright David Hare

David Hare (dramatist)

Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...

, "it reinvented the European repertoire for London audiences and made British theatre more cosmopolitan and outward going".
Organised as a non-profit producing theatre its productions regularly played to packed houses and frequently transferred to the West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 (14 between 1990 and 2002) and to Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

.

In 1993 the theatre won the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre.

One of the keys to the success and reputation of the Almeida during the 1990s were the stagings of various plays by Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

. These included revivals of Betrayal

Betrayal (play)

Betrayal is a play written by Harold Pinter in 1978. Critically regarded as one of the English playwright's major dramatic works, it features his characteristically economical dialogue, characters' hidden emotions and veiled motivations, and their self-absorbed competitive one-upmanship,...

in 1991 and No Man's Land

No Man's Land (play)

No Man's Land is a play by Harold Pinter written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the Old Vic Theatre in London by the National Theatre on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to Wyndhams Theatre, July 1975 - January 1976, the Lyttelton Theatre...

in 1992 and premières of Party Time in 1991 and Moonlight

Moonlight (play)

Moonlight is a play written by Harold Pinter, which premiered at the Almeida Theatre, in London, in September 1993.-Setting:THREE MAIN PLAYING AREAS:rehashes his youth, loves, lusts, and betrayals with his wife, [Bel], while simultaneously his two sons [Fred and Jake] — clinical, conspiratorial,...

in 1993.

During their time at the theatre, McDiarmid and Kent were described by The Guardian as "[making] Islington a centre of enlightened internationalism" and, as they were about to leave their positions in 2002, Michael Billington

Michael Billington (critic)

Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...

, in same newspaper, summed up their achievements as threefold:

"Three things have made the Almeida the most exciting theatre in Britain. First, an eclectically international programme: everything from Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

 and Marivaux to Brecht

Brecht

Brecht is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises the towns of Brecht proper, Sint-Job-in't-Goor and Sint-Lenaarts. On January 1, 2006 Brecht had a total population of 26,464...

 and Neil LaBute

Neil LaBute

Neil N. LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver. LaBute is of French Canadian, English and Irish ancestry, and was raised in Spokane,...

. Second, top-level casting that has given us Ralph Fiennes

Ralph Fiennes

Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....

 in Hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

and Ivanov, Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...

 in The Iceman Cometh

The Iceman Cometh

The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on 9 October 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling where it ran for 136 performances to close on 15 March 1947.-Characters:* Night Hawk-...

and Juliette Binoche

Juliette Binoche

Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...

 in Naked. Third, a territorial expansion that has seen the Almeida colonise the Hackney Empire

Hackney Empire

The Hackney Empire is a theatre on Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney, built in 1901 as a music hall.-History:Hackney Empire is a grade II* listed building...

, the old Gainsborough film studios

Gainsborough Pictures

Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, London. Gainsborough Studios were active between 1924 and 1951. Built as a power station for the Great Northern & City Railway it...

 and even a converted bus depot in King's Cross".

In Audi's tradition, "Almeida Opera" continues as an annual season of modern opera, usually held in July.

1999-present

In November 1999, the Almeida was awarded £1.5 million by the Arts Council of England to undertake essential repairs to the theatre. The work began early in 2001 when the theatre was closed, and the company moved temporarily to a converted bus station at King's Cross. National Lottery

National Lottery (United Kingdom)

The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...

 backing of £5.8 million allowed for a complete restoration.

The restoration included rebuilding and extending the foyer, installing more comfortable seating and access, plus better backstage facilities with the stage area re-built for flexibility and strength, the roof improved and insulated, the lighting grid strengthened, complete re-wiring, and technical equipment updated.

Michael Attenborough

Michael Attenborough

The Hon. Michael John Attenborough is a successful English theatre director. His parents are the actors Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough and Sheila Sim, Lady Attenborough...

 took over as artistic director in 2002 and, following the completion of its restoration, the theatre was re-opened in May 2003 with a production of Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...

's The Lady from the Sea

The Lady from the Sea

The Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.Kvinnan från havet is a ballet by choreographer Birgit Cullberg, and based on Ibsen's play...

, directed by Trevor Nunn

Trevor Nunn

Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...

. The theatre's current artistic remit is the presentation of bold and adventurous play choices staged to the highest possible standards, in productions which reveal them in a new light. This includes classics from the British, American and Irish repertoire, foreign classics in newly commissioned versions, and new plays.http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article4936377.ece

Almeida Projects

Almeida Projects is the Almeida Theatre's education and community programme. Founded in its current form in 2003 by Rebecca Manson Jones, after Michael Attenborough's appointment as Artistic Director, Almeida Projects provides an active, creative link between the theatre and its audience, more specifically an audience that may not have considered that the theatre might be for them. Largely inspired by the theatre's productions, Almeida Projects now delivers a range of innovative activities ranging from school residencies to the Young Friend of the Almeida scheme, aiming to encourage a creative exploration of the power of theatre.

"Whether any young person working with us goes on to become a professional writer, actor, director, designer, administrator or technician is of secondary interest. Our aim is to act as a catalyst to their energies, to their hunger to participate - celebrating the creativity of young people in the best way we know how: by offering them our experience, our expertise and our unique theatre."
Michael Attenborough

Michael Attenborough

The Hon. Michael John Attenborough is a successful English theatre director. His parents are the actors Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough and Sheila Sim, Lady Attenborough...

Almeida Projects activity covers the following: durational residencies with partner schools, a subsidised ticket scheme for school groups visiting the theatre, productions of new plays for young people inspired by the main programme, the Young Friend of the Almeida scheme, social networking Teachers' Evenings for local performing arts teachers and a training programme for workshop leaders.

Almeida Projects works closely with eight partner schools in Islington: Central Foundation Boys' School, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Language College, Highbury Fields School, Highbury Grove School

Highbury Grove School

Highbury Grove School is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school in the London Borough of Islington. It covers the age range 11 to 18 inclusive and currently has about 1,100 pupils. It is classified as a Community School, specialising in business, enterprise studies and music . The head...

, Islington Arts and Media School

Islington Arts and Media School

Islington Arts and Media School, is an Arts and Media specialising secondary school in the Borough of Islington, London. It was formerly known as George Orwell School. It was attended by Jay Simpson of Millwall...

, Mount Carmel RC Technology College for Girls

Mount Carmel RC Technology College for Girls

Mount Carmel RC Technology College for Girls is a Roman Catholic, girls-only school in Islington, North London. The school was located in Eden Grove, Holloway before moving to its present location in Holland Walk, Archway. Girls have to go through an interview and exam, and are then selected based...

, The Bridge School and City and Islington College

City and Islington College

City and Islington College also known as Candi, is a further education college located in the London Borough of Islington, England with five major sites across Islington. It is a member of the 157 Group of highly successful Further Education colleges in England, of which it's principal Frank...

. The Young Friend of the Almeida Theatre scheme was established in May 2008 to enable local young people to take part in activities outside of school. It currently has over 350 members and includes the Young Friend of the Almeida Creative Board, composed of young people who take an active role in planning and promoting all Young Friend activities.

Digital Theatre

The Almedia was one of the launch theatres for Digital Theatre

Digital theatre

Strictly, Digital theatre is a hybrid art form, gaining strength from theatre’s ability to facilitate imagination and create human connections, and digital technology’s ability extend the reach of communication and visualization...

, a project which makes theatre productions available in video download form. The first performance that was filmed was 'Parlour Song'.

Artistic directors

• Pierre Audi, (1979–1989)
• Jonathan Kent and Ian McDiarmid, (1990–2002)
• Michael Attenborough, (2002–)

Almeida Theatre productions and presentations under Pierre Audi’s artistic direction 1981-1990

The bracketed numerals against each entry refer to the relevant Theatre Record

Theatre Record

Theatre Record is a periodical that reprints reviews, production photographs, and other information about the British theatre.-Overview:Founded by Ian Herbert and published fortnightly since January 1981, Theatre Record is printed and published in England every two weeks.It reprints unabridged all...

 page numbers

1981

• The Seagull
  The Seagull
  The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
  
  (Shared Experience
  Shared Experience
  Shared Experience is a British theatre company. Its current joint artistic directors are Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale. Kate Saxon is an Associate Director.-Productions:*A Passage to India *Madame Bovary...
  
  ) 13 Oct-7 Nov 1981 (540)

1982

• A Dybbuk for Two People adapted by Bruce Myers 6-7 June 1982 (297)
• L’Os (The Bone) by Birago Dilip (Bouffes du Nord) 20-31 October 1982 (582)
• Venice Preserv'd
  Venice Preserv'd
  Venice Preserv'd is an English Restoration play written by Thomas Otway, and the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s. It was staged first in 1682, with Thomas Betterton as Jaffeir and Elizabeth Barry as Belvidera...
  
  by Thomas Otway
  Thomas Otway
  Thomas Otway was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd .-Life:...
  
   3-21 November 1982 (610)
• The Insomniac in Morgue Drawer 9 by Andy Smith (Shared Experience) 24 November -5 December 1982 (659)
• One Man, Steven Berkoff
  Steven Berkoff
  Steven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director. Best known for his performance as General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, he is typically cast in villanous roles, such as Lt...
  
   2-5 December 1982 (??)
• Cage at 70 Festival (including performance of John Cage
  John Cage
  John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
  
  's Roaratorio
  Roaratorio
  Roaratorio, an Irish circus on Finnegans Wake is a musical composition by American avant-garde composer John Cage. It was composed in 1979 for Klaus Schöning of West German Radio, and premiered as one of the entries in Schöning's radio series....
  
  featuring The Chieftains
  The Chieftains
  The Chieftains are a Grammy-winning Irish musical group founded in 1962, best known for being one of the first bands to make Irish traditional music popular around the world.-Name:...
  
  )

1983

• Fen by Caryl Churchill
  Caryl Churchill
  Caryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer...
  
   (Joint Stock
  Joint Stock Theatre Company
  The Joint Stock Theatre Company was founded in London 1974 by David Hare, Max Stafford-Clark and David Aukin. The director William Gaskill was also an important part of the company. It was primarily a new work company....
  
  ) 16 February-12 March 1983 (111)
• Ariadne’s Afternoon, devised by Natalie Morgan 19-30 April 1983 (293)
• Courts Circuits/Le Blouses (Le Compagnie Jerome Deschamp) 9-19 May 1983 (357)
• Yum Yum (Bloolips) 31 May-4 June 1983 (425)
• The Crimes of Vautrin
  Vautrin
  Vautrin is a character from the novels of French writer Honoré de Balzac in the La Comédie humaine series. His real name is Jacques Collin...
  
  by Nicholas Wright
  Nicholas Wright (playwright)
  Nicholas Wright is a British dramatist. He opened and ran the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, was joint artistic director of the Royal Court and is a former literary manager and associate director of the Royal National Theatre. Wright began acting as a child, and trained at The...
  
   from Balzac (Joint Stock) 23 June-16 July 1983 (492)
• Put It On Your Head (Theatre Complicite
  Complicite
  The British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. "The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting...
  
  ) 26 September-1 October 1983 (841)
• Odds’n’Sods (Bloolips) 11-22 October 1983 (877)
• Four Saints in Three Acts opera by Gertrude Stein
  Gertrude Stein
  Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
  
   and Virgil Thomson
  Virgil Thomson
  Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
  
  

1984

• War Music by Christopher Logue
  Christopher Logue
  Christopher Logue, CBE is an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He has also written for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage...
  
   5-14 April 1984 (261)
• Hedda Gabler
  Hedda Gabler
  Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...
  
  in the Christopher Hampton
  Christopher Hampton
  Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of...
  
   version directed by Tim Albery
  Tim Albery
  Tim Bronson Reginald Albery is an English stage director, best known for his productions of opera.-Life and career:Albery was born in Harpenden, the son of the impresario Donald Albery and grandson of the producer Sir Bronson Albery...
  
   (Almeida Theatre Company) 24 April-19 May 1984 (536)
• Mrs Gauguin by Helen Cooper (Almeida Theatre Company) directed by Mike Bradwell
  Mike Bradwell
  Mike Bradwell is a Canadian football wide receiver for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. He was drafted in the second round of the 2008 CFL Draft by the Toronto Argonauts...
  
   1-16 June 1984 (469)
• The Fridge written and performed by Copi
  Copi
  Raúl Damonte Botana , better known by the nom de plume Copi , was an Argentine writer, cartoonist, and playwright who spent most of his career in Paris.-Biography:Damonte spent most of his youth in Montevideo...
  
   10-14 July 1984 (604)
• Melancholy Jacques by Jean Jourdheuil (Almeida Productions at the Edinburgh Festival/Traverse Theatre
  Traverse Theatre
  The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963.The Traverse Theatre commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary playwrights. It also presents a large number of productions from visiting companies from across the UK. These include new plays,...
  
   and the Bush Theatre
  Bush Theatre
  The Bush Theatre is based in Shepherd's Bush, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was established in 1972 above The Bush public house by Brian McDermott, and has since become one of the most celebrated new writing theatres in the world. An intimate venue renowned for its close-up...
  
  )
• Perfect Lives/Private Parts opera by Robert Ashley
  Robert Ashley
  Robert Ashley , is a contemporary American composer, best known for his operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. Along with Gordon Mumma, Ashley was also a major pioneer of audio synthesis.Ashley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan...
  
  

1985

• Man Equals Man
  Man Equals Man
  Man Equals Man , or A Man's a Man, is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. One of Brecht's earlier works, it explores themes of war, human fungibility, and identity...
  
  by Bertolt Brecht
  Bertolt Brecht
  Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
  
   (Almeida Theatre Company) 20 Feb-9 March (157)
• The Possessed, Yuri Lyubimov
  Yuri Lyubimov
  Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov is a Soviet and Russian stage actor and director associated with the internationally-renowned Taganka Theatre which he founded ,...
  
  ’s Dostoevsky adaptation (Co-produced by the Almeida Theatre Company and the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Paris, on tour to the Piccolo Teatro
  Union of the Theatres of Europe
  The Union of the Theatres of Europe is an alliance of European public theatres. It serves to promote European integration through cultural interaction....
  
  , Milan, and Bologna) 21 March-2 April (252)
• A Bolt out of the Blue, devised by Mary Longford 30 April-4 May 1985 (391)
• Medea
  Medea (play)
  Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed...
  
  by Euripides
  Euripides
  Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
  
  , translated by Rex Warner
  Rex Warner
  Rex Warner was an English classicist, writer and translator. He is now probably best remembered for The Aerodrome , an allegorical novel whose young hero is faced with the disintegration of his certainties about his loved ones and with a choice between the earthy, animalistic life of his home...
  
   (Leicester Haymarket
  Haymarket Theatre (Leicester)
  The Haymarket Theatre was a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on Belgrave Gate in Leicester city centre. The theatre closed at the end of 2006 and has been replaced by the Curve Theatre...
  
  ) 7-15 May 1985 (426)
• The Bald Prima Donna by Eugene Ionesco
  Eugène Ionesco
  Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
  
   and Bedtime Story by Sean O’Casey (Leicester Haymarket
  Haymarket Theatre (Leicester)
  The Haymarket Theatre was a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on Belgrave Gate in Leicester city centre. The theatre closed at the end of 2006 and has been replaced by the Curve Theatre...
  
  ) 16-18 May 1985 (456)
• Woyzeck
  Woyzeck
  Woyzeck is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. He left the work incomplete at his death, but it has been variously and posthumously "finished" by a variety of authors, editors and translators. Woyzeck has become one of the most performed and influential plays in the German theatre...
  
  Georg Büchner
  Georg Büchner
  Karl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany...
  
   revival (Leicester Haymarket
  Haymarket Theatre (Leicester)
  The Haymarket Theatre was a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on Belgrave Gate in Leicester city centre. The theatre closed at the end of 2006 and has been replaced by the Curve Theatre...
  
  ) 20-25 May 1985 (456)
• Le Tango Stupefiant (Helen Delavault performance) 28 May-7 June 1985 (507)
• The Cenci
  The Cenci
  The Cenci, A Tragedy, in Five Acts is a verse drama in five acts by Percy Bysshe Shelley written in the summer of 1819, and inspired by a real Italian family, the Cencis . Shelley composed the play at Rome and at Villa Valsovano near Livorno, from May to August 5, 1819...
  
  by Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
  
   (Bristol New Vic
  Bristol Old Vic
  The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
  
  ) 15-27 July 1985 (667)
• Lark Rise by Keith Dewhurst’s Flora Thompson
  Flora Thompson
  Flora Jane Thompson was an English novelist and poet famous for her semi-autobiographical trilogy about the English countryside, Lark Rise to Candleford.-Early life and family:...
  
   adaptation revived (Leicester Haymarket
  Haymarket Theatre (Leicester)
  The Haymarket Theatre was a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on Belgrave Gate in Leicester city centre. The theatre closed at the end of 2006 and has been replaced by the Curve Theatre...
  
  ) 19 September -12 October 1985 (934)
• The Deliberate Death of a Polish Priest by Ronald Harwood
  Ronald Harwood
  Sir Ronald Harwood CBE is an author, playwright and screenwriter. He is most noted for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay...
  
  , 17 October-9 November 1985 (1041)
• King Lear
  King Lear
  King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
  
  directed by Deborah Warner
  Deborah Warner
  Deborah Warner CBE is a British director of theatre and opera known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her long-term working relationship with the Irish actress Fiona Shaw.-Early years:Warner was born in Oxfordshire,...
  
   (Kick Theatre) 20-30 November 1985 (1169)
• Cupboard Man adapted for the stage by Julia Bardsley and Phelim McDermott from the short story by Ian McEwan
  Ian McEwan
  Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
  
   (dereck dereck productions) 9-21 December 1985 (1223)
• White Rose by Peter Arnott (Traverse Theatre
  Traverse Theatre
  The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963.The Traverse Theatre commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary playwrights. It also presents a large number of productions from visiting companies from across the UK. These include new plays,...
  
  ) [Almeida ‘lates’] 9-21 December 1985 (1225)
• Kopernikus opera by Claude Vivier
  Claude Vivier
  -Biography:Born to unknown parents in Montreal, Vivier was adopted at the age of three by a poor French-Canadian family. From the age of thirteen, he attended boarding schools run by the Marist Brothers, a religious order that prepared young boys for a vocation in the priesthood. At the age of...
  
   directed by Pierre Audi
  Pierre Audi
  Pierre Audi is a French-Lebanese theatre director and artistic director.Pierre Audi is the son of the Lebanese banker Raymond Audi and Andrée Michel Fattal, the eldest of three children. Audi's family were originally from originally from Saida, but he attended the French Lycée in Beirut...
  
  

1986

• The Story of the Eye and the Tooth (El-Hakawati Theatre Co) 2-18 January 1986 (5)
• Three Storeys and a Dark Cellar (IOU Theatre) 6-11 February 1986 (118)
• The Saxon Shore by David Rudkin
  David Rudkin
  James David Rudkin is an English playwright of Northern Irish descent. Coming from a family of strict evangelical Christians, Rudkin was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and read Mods and Greats at St Catherine's College, Oxford...
  
  , directed by Pierre Audi
  Pierre Audi
  Pierre Audi is a French-Lebanese theatre director and artistic director.Pierre Audi is the son of the Lebanese banker Raymond Audi and Andrée Michel Fattal, the eldest of three children. Audi's family were originally from originally from Saida, but he attended the French Lycée in Beirut...
  
   (Almeida Theatre Company) 27 February- 22 March 1986 (205)
• Milva Sings Brecht, Italian Chanteuse, 25-29 March 1986 (287)
• People Show
  People Show
  The People Show is the longest running English experimental theatre company, based in the East End of London.Founded by Jeff Nuttall and Mark Long in 1966 and performing its first show in the basement of Better Books in London's Charing Cross Road, the People Show was London's first performance art...
  
    No 91 A Romance (revival) 2-19 April 1986 (326)
• The Merchant of Venice
  The Merchant of Venice
  The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
  
  (Leicester Haymarket
  Haymarket Theatre (Leicester)
  The Haymarket Theatre was a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on Belgrave Gate in Leicester city centre. The theatre closed at the end of 2006 and has been replaced by the Curve Theatre...
  
  ) 22-29 April 1986 (416)
• Baal
  Baal (play)
  Baal was the first full-length play written by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. It concerns a wastrel youth who becomes involved in several sexual affairs and at least one murder...
  
  , Christopher Logue translation of Brecht, 30 April-6 May 1986 (462)
• The Phoney Physician, Jack Laskowski version of Molière
  Molière
  Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
  
  , 7-10 May 1986 (503)
• Creditors by August Strindberg
  August Strindberg
  Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
  
   (Almeida Theatre Company) 19 May-7 June 1986 (527)
• Dybbuk adapted by Bruce Myers, revival, 16 July-2 August 1986 (772)
• Not the RSC 2: Two weeks of work by RSC members, 5-17 August 1986
• Coriolanus
  Coriolanus
  Gaius Marcius Coriolanus was a Roman general who is said to have lived in the 5th century BC. He received his toponymic cognomen "Coriolanus" because of his exceptional valor in a Roman siege of the Volscian city of Corioli. He was then promoted to a general...
  
  directed by Deborah Warner
  Deborah Warner
  Deborah Warner CBE is a British director of theatre and opera known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her long-term working relationship with the Irish actress Fiona Shaw.-Early years:Warner was born in Oxfordshire,...
  
   (Kick Theatre) 18 September- 11 October 1986 (1006)
• Supper Goodnight with:Carthage (Akademia Ruchu, Lublin) 14-18 October 1986 (1133)
• Gaudete adapted for the stage by Julia Bardsley and Phelim McDermott from the prose poem by Ted Hughes
  Ted Hughes
  Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...
  
   (dereck dereck productions) 28 October-15 November 1986 (1191)
• The Great Hunger by Tom MacIntyre from Patrick Kavanagh
  Patrick Kavanagh
  Patrick Kavanagh was an Irish poet and novelist. Regarded as one of the foremost poets of the 20th century, his best known works include the novel Tarry Flynn and the poems Raglan Road and The Great Hunger...
  
  , directed by Patrick Mason (Abbey Theatre) 25 November-13 December 1986 (1313)
• The King and the Corpse (Indian Folk Tales, Not the RSC) 16 December 1986-3 January 1987 (1393)

1987

• Losing Venice by John Clifford (Traverse Company) 6-17 January 1987 (6)
• Panata Sa Kalayaan (Philippine Education Theatre Association) 27-31 January 1987 (90)
• Kathie and the Hippopotamus by Mario Vargas Llosa
  Mario Vargas Llosa
  Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
  
   26 February-21 March 1987 (233)
• The Tourist Guide by Botho Strauss (Almeida Theatre Company) 8 April-2 May 1987 (429)
• Mystere Bouffe (Le Theatre du Radeau, France) 5-16 May, 1987 (538)
• Tattoo Theatre by Mladen Materic (Tetovirano Company) 29 September-17 October 1987 (1259)
• Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller
  Heiner Müller
  Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
  
  , adapted by Robert Wilson
  Robert Wilson (director)
  Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...
  
  , 4-14 November 1987 (1415)
• Nana
  Nana (novel)
  Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, the object of which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire", the subtitle of the series.-Origins:A year...
  
  by Olwen Wymark
  Olwen Wymark
  Olwen Wymark is an American writer and playwright.-Early life:Olwen Margaret Buck was born on February 14, 1932 in Oakland, California her parents being Philip W. and Barbara Buck...
  
  , based on Zola
  Émile Zola
  Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
  
   (Shared Experience) 18 November-5 December 1987 (1480)
• The Traveller by Jean-Claude van Itallie (Leicester Haymarket
  Haymarket Theatre (Leicester)
  The Haymarket Theatre was a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on Belgrave Gate in Leicester city centre. The theatre closed at the end of 2006 and has been replaced by the Curve Theatre...
  
  ) 9 December 1987-9 January 1988 (1586)
• Frankenstein! pan-demonium by H.K. Gruber
• Jakob Lenz opera by Wolfgang Rihm
  Wolfgang Rihm
  Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer.Rihm is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival...
  
  

1988

• The Prophet devised by Renu Setna (Carib Theatre Productions) 13-23 January 1988 (240)
• Venus and Lucrece by Bardy Thomas from Shakespeare, 27 January-20 February 1988 (92)
• The Possibilities, short plays by Howard Barker
  Howard Barker
  Howard E. Barker is a British playwright.-The Theatre of Catastrophe :Barker has coined the term "Theatre of Catastrophe" to describe his work...
  
  , 25 February-19 March 1988 (230)
• The Story of Ku Ur Shamma by J Lubeck and Abu Salem, 29 March-16 April 1988 (405)
• Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John
  Errol John
  Errol John was a Trinidadian actor and playwright.Born in Trinidad, he was home schooled then began his career as an artist and journalist. Deciding to pursue a career in acting, he joined the Whitehall Theatre Group...
  
  , 5 May-4 June 1988 (581)
• Hello and Goodbye by Athol Fugard
  Athol Fugard
  Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...
  
   (RSC) 5 August-27 September 1988 (1044)
• Keeping Tom Nice by Lucy Gannon
  Lucy Gannon
  -Life:Lucy Gannon once worked as a military policewoman, a residential social worker, as well as a nurse and lived in a concrete council house with no central heating. Now she resides in a converted barn, in Derbyshire, and is one of the most sought-after TV writers aroundShe started in 1987, to...
  
   (RSC) 11 August-29 September 1988 ( 1077)
• Oedipus
  Oedipus (Seneca)
  Oedipus is a tragic play that was written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca at some time during the 1st century AD. It is a retelling of the story of Oedipus, which is better known through the play Oedipus the King by the Athenian playwright, Sophocles...
  
  by Seneca
  Seneca the Younger
  Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
  
   (RSC) 18 August-1 October 1988 (1104)
• The World of My Dreams play selection in Yiddish, 8-13 October 1988 (1413)
• Theatre Complicite
  Complicite
  The British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. "The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting...
  
   retrospective season, 17 October 1988-21 January 1989

A Minute Too Late (1453)

Ave Maria, Linda Kerr Scott

Miss Dunnithorne’s Maggot by Peter Maxwell Davies

Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...

 (1598)

Food of Love (1598)

What Is All This Dancing? (1598)

The Visit

The Visit

The Visit is a 1956 tragicomic play by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt.-Plot summary:...

by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...

 (1595)

More Bigger Snacks Now (1750)

My Army by Tim Barlow (1750)

Please Please Please (1750)

Phantom Violin by Gerard McBurney (1750)

• The Undivine Comedy opera by Michael Finnissy
  Michael Finnissy
  Michael Finnissy is an English composer and pianist. His music is characterised by the range of extremes often found in his work; opposing binary structures are found commonly, often seen as juxtaposing textures, register and tempi...
  
  

1989

• Anything for a Quiet Life (Theatre Complicite) 11-21 January 1989 (34)
• The Vinegar Works by Edward Gorey
  Edward Gorey
  Edward St. John Gorey was an American writer and artist noted for his macabre illustrated books.-Early life:...
  
   (dereck dereck) 24-28 January 1989 (88)
• Polygraph by Robert Lepage
  Robert Lepage
  Robert Lepage, is a playwright, actor, film director, and stage director from Québec City, Québec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.- Life and work :...
  
   and Marie Brassard
  Marie Brassard
  Marie Brassard is a Quebec actress, author and theatre director living in Montreal. For many years her professional endeavors were closely linked with Robert Lepage...
  
   23 February-4 March 1989 (230)
• Indigo by Heidi Thomas 9 March-1 April 1989 (300)
• Mozart and Salieri by Alexander Pushkin 7 April-5 May 1989 (421)
• Molière
  Molière
  Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
  
  ’s Don Juan
  Dom Juan
  Dom Juan or The Feast with the Statue is a French play by Molière, based on the legend of Don Juan. Molière's characters Dom Juan and Sganarelle are the French counterparts to the Spanish Don Juan and Catalinón, characters who would later become familiar to opera goers as Don Giovanni and Leporello...
  
  (Georgian Studio USSR) 16-27 May 1989 (625)
• Cinzano by Ludmilla Petrushevstaya 10-15 July 1989 (960)
• Pacha Mama’s Blessing by Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...
  
   and Peter Searles (NYT) 29 August-30 September 1989 (1147)
• King Lear
  King Lear
  King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
  
  (Royal Shakespeare Company) 14 September-28 October 1989 (1248)
• Kissing the Pope by Nick Darke
  Nick Darke
  Nick Darke born Nicholas Temperley Watson Darke was best known as playwright but was also a writer, poet, lobster fisherman, environmentalist, beachcomber, politician, broadcaster, film-maker and chairman of St Eval Parish Council.-Life and writings:Nick Darke was born at St Eval, near Padstow in...
  
   (RSC) 21 September-26 October 1989 (1276)
• HID - Hess Is Dead by Howard Brenton
  Howard Brenton
  -Early years:Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, son of Methodist minister Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian . He was educated at Chichester High School For Boys and read English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1964 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal...
  
   (RSC) 28 September-24 October 1989 (1327)
• Lady Betty by Declan Donnellan
  Declan Donnellan
  Declan Donnellan is a British theatre director and writer. He is co-founder of Cheek by Jowl theatre company. In 1992 he received an honoris causa degree from the University of Warwick and in 2004 he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in France...
  
   (Cheek by Jowl
  Cheek by Jowl
  Cheek By Jowl is a theatre company founded by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod in 1981. The company has performed across the world and, with their 1986 production of Twelfth Night, were the first to bring a Shakespearean play to The Swan....
  
  ) 30 November-23 December 1989 (1637)
• Golem opera by John Casken
  John Casken
  John Casken is an English composer, born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England.Casken read music at the University of Birmingham, studying composition and contemporary music with John Joubert and Peter Dickinson. He then went on to study in Poland with Andrzej Dobrowolski on a Polish government...
  
  
• The Lamentations of Thel opera by Dmitri Smirnov 9-11 June 1989

1990

• Europeras 3 & 4 opera by John Cage
  John Cage
  John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
  
   June 17, 1990
• The Intelligence Park opera by Gerald Barry

Notable productions from 1990

• Scenes from an Execution by Howard Barker
  Howard Barker
  Howard E. Barker is a British playwright.-The Theatre of Catastrophe :Barker has coined the term "Theatre of Catastrophe" to describe his work...
  
   directed by Ian McDiarmid with Glenda Jackson
  Glenda Jackson
  Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
  
   and Jonathan Hyde
  Jonathan Hyde
  Jonathan Hyde is an Australian-born English actor, well known for his roles as J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line in Titanic, Egyptologist Allen Chamberlain in The Mummy and Sam Parrish/Van Pelt, the hunter in Jumanji. He is married to the Scottish soprano Isobel Buchanan...
  
   (January 1990)
• When We Dead Awaken
  When We Dead Awaken
  When We Dead Awaken is the last play written by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Published in December 1899, Ibsen wrote the play between February and November of that year. The first performance was at the Haymarket Theatre in London, a day or two before publication.-Plot summary:The first act...
  
  by Henrik Ibsen
  Henrik Ibsen
  Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
  
   directed by Jonathan Kent (February 1990)
• Betrayal
  Betrayal (play)
  Betrayal is a play written by Harold Pinter in 1978. Critically regarded as one of the English playwright's major dramatic works, it features his characteristically economical dialogue, characters' hidden emotions and veiled motivations, and their self-absorbed competitive one-upmanship,...
  
  by Harold Pinter
  Harold Pinter
  Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
  
   directed by David Leveaux
  David Leveaux
  David Leveaux is a British theatre director who has been nominated for five Tony Awards as director of both plays and musicals...
  
   with Martin Shaw
  Martin Shaw
  Martin Shaw is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in shows such as The Professionals, The Chief, Judge John Deed and Inspector George Gently.-Theatrical background:...
  
   and Cheryl Campbell
  Cheryl Campbell
  Cheryl Campbell is an English actor of stage, film and television.-Early years:Cheryl Campbell was educated at Francis Bacon Grammar School, St Albans; London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art...
  
   (1991)
• No Man's Land by Harold Pinter
  Harold Pinter
  Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
  
  , directed by David Leveaux
  David Leveaux
  David Leveaux is a British theatre director who has been nominated for five Tony Awards as director of both plays and musicals...
  
  , with Harold Pinter, Paul Eddington
  Paul Eddington
  Paul Eddington CBE was an English actor best known for his appearances in popular television sitcoms of the 1970s and 80s: The Good Life, Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.-Early life:...
  
   and Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...
  
   (1992), transferred to Comedy Theatre in 1993.
• The Showman (Der Theatermacher) by Thomas Bernhard
  Thomas Bernhard
  Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...
  
   directed by Jonathan Kent
  Jonathan Kent (director)
  Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.-Early life:...
  
   with Alan Bates
  Alan Bates
  Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
  
   (1993)
• The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan
  Terence Rattigan
  Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
  
   directed by Karel Reisz
  Karel Reisz
  Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
  
   with Penelope Wilton
  Penelope Wilton
  Penelope Alice Wilton, OBE is an English actress.-Life and career:Penelope Alice Wilton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, to a former actress mother and a businessman father. She is a niece of actors Bill Travers and Linden Travers and a cousin of the actor Richard Morant...
  
   (1993) transferred to Apollo Theatre
• Moonlight
  Moonlight (play)
  Moonlight is a play written by Harold Pinter, which premiered at the Almeida Theatre, in London, in September 1993.-Setting:THREE MAIN PLAYING AREAS:rehashes his youth, loves, lusts, and betrayals with his wife, [Bel], while simultaneously his two sons [Fred and Jake] — clinical, conspiratorial,...
  
  by Harold Pinter
  Harold Pinter
  Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
  
   directed by David Leveaux
  David Leveaux
  David Leveaux is a British theatre director who has been nominated for five Tony Awards as director of both plays and musicals...
  
   with Ian Holm
  Ian Holm
  Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear...
  
  , Anna Massey
  Anna Massey
  Anna Raymond Massey, CBE was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac.-Early life:...
  
   and Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...
  
   (1993)
• Medea
  Medea
  Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...
  
  by Euripides
  Euripides
  Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
  
   directed by Jonathan Kent
  Jonathan Kent (director)
  Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.-Early life:...
  
   with Diana Rigg
  Diana Rigg
  Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
  
   (1992) transferred to the West End
  West End theatre
  West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
  
   and Broadway
  Broadway theatre
  Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
  
   (1994)
• Playboy of the Western World by J.M.Synge
  John Millington Synge
  Edmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre...
  
  , directed by Lynne Parker with Aidan Gillen
  Aidan Gillen
  Aidan Gillen is an Irish stage and screen actor and television presenter. He is known in Ireland for his role in Love/Hate, in the UK for his role in Queer as Folk and in the US for his role in HBO's television series The Wire in which he plays Tommy Carcetti and for his role in Game of Thrones as...
  
   (1994)
• Hamlet
  Hamlet
  The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
  
  , Almeida Theatre Company at the Hackney Empire
  Hackney Empire
  The Hackney Empire is a theatre on Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney, built in 1901 as a music hall.-History:Hackney Empire is a grade II* listed building...
  
  , directed by Jonathan Kent with Ralph Fiennes
  Ralph Fiennes
  Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
  
   as Hamlet and Francesca Annis
  Francesca Annis
  Francesca Annis is an English actress, known for her film and television appearances, most recently in the BBC series Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Deceit.-Early life and education:...
  
   as Gertrude (February 1995) transferred to the Belasco Theatre
  Belasco Theatre
  The Belasco Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 111 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan.-History:Designed by architect George Keister for impresario David Belasco, the interior featured Tiffany lighting and ceiling panels, rich woodwork and expansive murals by American artist...
  
   on Broadway
• The Silver Tassie
  The Silver Tassie (play)
  The Silver Tassie is a four-act Expressionist play about the First World War, written between 1927 and 1928 by the Irish playwright Seán O'Casey. It was O'Casey's fourth play and attacks imperialist wars and the suffering that they cause. O'Casey described the play as "A generous handful of stones,...
  
  by Sean O'Casey
  Seán O'Casey
  Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
  
  , directed by Lynne Parker (1995).
• Tartuffe
  Tartuffe
  Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
  
  by Molière
  Molière
  Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
  
   directed by Jonathan Kent
  Jonathan Kent (director)
  Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.-Early life:...
  
   with Ian McDiarmid and Tom Hollander
  Tom Hollander
  Thomas Anthony "Tom" Hollander is a British actor who has appeared in productions such as Enigma, Gosford Park, Cambridge Spies, Pride and Prejudice, Pirates of the Caribbean, In the Loop, Valkyrie and Hanna.-Early life:Tom Hollander was born in Bristol and raised in Oxford, Oxfordshire, the son...
  
   (1996)
• Ivanov by Anton Chekhov
  Anton Chekhov
  Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
  
   translated by David Hare
  David Hare (dramatist)
  Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
  
   directed by Jonathan Kent with Ralph Fiennes
  Ralph Fiennes
  Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
  
   and Harriet Walter
  Harriet Walter
  Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE is a British actress.-Personal life:She is the niece of renowned British actor Sir Christopher Lee, as the daughter of his elder sister Xandra Lee. On her father's side she is a great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The TimesShe was educated at...
  
   (1997)
• Naked by Luigi Pirandello
  Luigi Pirandello
  Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
  
  , directed by Jonathan Kent
  Jonathan Kent (director)
  Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.-Early life:...
  
   with Juliette Binoche
  Juliette Binoche
  Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...
  
   (1998), transferred to the Playhouse Theatre
  Playhouse Theatre
  The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt in 1907 and still retains its original substage machinery...
  
  
• The Storm by Alexander Ostrovsky, directed by Hettie Macdonald
  Hettie MacDonald
  Hettie MacDonald is a British director who won a Grand Prix award, an International Jury Award - Honorable Mention and a People's Choice Award for her work on the film Beautiful Thing. She has also directed for television and the stage....
  
   with Tom Mannion
  Tom Mannion
  Tom Mannion is a British actor.His television credits include Brookside, Up the Garden Path, The Bill, Boon, Cadfael, Doctor Finlay, Doctors, Eleventh Hour, Holby City, Hustle, Life on Mars, Midsomer Murders, New Tricks, Red Cap, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Spatz, Taggart, The Agatha Christie...
  
  , Susan Lynch
  Susan Lynch
  Susan Lynch is an actor from Northern Ireland.-Early life:Lynch was born in Corrinshego, Newry, County Armagh, Northern Ireland to an Italian mother and Irish father. Her brother is actor John Lynch, she has a sister, Pauline, who is a drama teacher at St...
  
   and Maggie Steed
  Maggie Steed
  Maggie Steed is an English actress and comedienne.-Youth:After studying drama at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, she left the theatre for several years.-Career:...
  
   (1998)
• The Iceman Cometh
  The Iceman Cometh
  The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on 9 October 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling where it ran for 136 performances to close on 15 March 1947.-Characters:* Night Hawk-...
  
  by Eugene O'Neill
  Eugene O'Neill
  Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
  
  , directed by Howard Davies
  Howard Davies (Theatre Director)
  Stephen Howard Davies CBE is a British theatre and television director.Davies, the son of a miner, was born in Durham, England and studied at Durham University and Bristol University, where he developed an appreciation for the works of Bertolt Brecht.In the early 1970s, Davies worked extensively...
  
   with Kevin Spacey
  Kevin Spacey
  Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
  
   (1998, transferred to the Old Vic Theatre and to Broadway
  Broadway theatre
  Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
  
  )
• Phedre by Jean Racine
  Jean Racine
  Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
  
  , directed by Jonathan Kent
  Jonathan Kent (director)
  Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.-Early life:...
  
  , with Diana Rigg
  Diana Rigg
  Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
  
   and Barbara Jefford
  Barbara Jefford
  Barbara Jefford, OBE is a British Shakespearean actress best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre, and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses.-Early life:Jefford was born Mary Barbara Jefford in...
  
   (1998)
• Britannicus by Jean Racine, directed by Jonathan Kent
  Jonathan Kent (director)
  Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.-Early life:...
  
  , with Diana Rigg
  Diana Rigg
  Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
  
   and Barbara Jefford
  Barbara Jefford
  Barbara Jefford, OBE is a British Shakespearean actress best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre, and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses.-Early life:Jefford was born Mary Barbara Jefford in...
  
   (1998)
• Vassa by Maxim Gorky
  Maxim Gorky
  Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
  
  , directed by Howard Davies with Sheila Hancock
  Sheila Hancock
  Sheila Cameron Hancock, CBE is an English actress and author.-Early life:Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise and Enrico Cameron Hancock, who was a publican. Her sister Billie is seven years older...
  
   (1999)
• Richard II
  Richard II (play)
  King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
  
  , Almeida Theatre Company at the Gainsborough Studios, directed by Jonathan Kent with Ralph Fiennes (April-July 2000)
• Coriolanus
  Coriolanus
  Gaius Marcius Coriolanus was a Roman general who is said to have lived in the 5th century BC. He received his toponymic cognomen "Coriolanus" because of his exceptional valor in a Roman siege of the Volscian city of Corioli. He was then promoted to a general...
  
  , Almeida Theatre Company at the Gainsborough Studios, directed by Jonathan Kent with Ralph Fiennes (June-July 2000)
• The Tempest
  The Tempest
  The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
  
  by William Shakespeare
  William Shakespeare
  William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
  
   directed by Jonathan Kent (final production) with Ian McDiarmid and Aidan Gillen
  Aidan Gillen
  Aidan Gillen is an Irish stage and screen actor and television presenter. He is known in Ireland for his role in Love/Hate, in the UK for his role in Queer as Folk and in the US for his role in HBO's television series The Wire in which he plays Tommy Carcetti and for his role in Game of Thrones as...
  
   (14 December 2000-17 February 2001) http://www.newstatesman.com/200012180035
• The Lady from the Sea
  The Lady from the Sea
  The Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.Kvinnan från havet is a ballet by choreographer Birgit Cullberg, and based on Ibsen's play...
  
  by Henrik Ibsen
  Henrik Ibsen
  Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
  
   in a version by Pam Gems
  Pam Gems
  Pam Gems was a British playwright. The author of numerous original plays, as well as of adaptations of works by major European playwrights of the past, Gems is best known for the 1978 musical play Piaf.-Personal life:...
  
  , directed by Trevor Nunn
  Trevor Nunn
  Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
  
  , with Natasha Richardson
  Natasha Richardson
  Natasha Jane Richardson was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
  
   and Benedict Cumberbatch
  Benedict Cumberbatch
  Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch is an English film, television, and theatre actor. His most acclaimed roles include Stephen Hawking in the BBC drama Hawking ; William Pitt in the historical film Amazing Grace ; the protagonist Stephen Ezard in the miniseries thriller The Last Enemy ; Paul...
  
   (2003)http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=207&story=E8821053078790.
• I.D. by Antony Sher
  Antony Sher
  Sir Antony Sher, KBE is a double Olivier Award winning South African-born British actor, writer, theatre director and painter.- Early years :...
  
  , directed by Nancy Meckler
  Nancy Meckler
  Nancy Meckler is an American theatre director and film director, best known for her work in the United Kingdom, especially with Shared Experience, where she is joint artistic director alongside Polly Teale....
  
  , with Antony Sher, Alex Ferns
  Alex Ferns
  Alexander "Alex" Ferns is a Scottish actor and television personality, best known for his EastEnders role as Trevor Morgan, "Britain's most-hated soap villain."...
  
   and Marius Weyers
  Marius Weyers
  Marius Weyers is a South African actor. He received international attention playing Andrew Steyn in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy . He recently starred in Blood Diamond.-Selected filmography:...
  
   (2003)http://www.whatsonstage.com/tickets/theatre//L1845108430/.html
• The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? by Edward Albee
  Edward Albee
  Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
  
   directed by Anthony Page with Jonathan Pryce (2004)http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/thegoat-rev.htm
• Hedda Gabler
  Hedda Gabler
  Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...
  
  by Henrik Ibsen
  Henrik Ibsen
  Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
  
   directed by Richard Eyre
  Richard Eyre
  Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre, television, and opera.-Biography:Eyre was educated at Sherborne School, an independent school for boys in the market town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset in south-west England, followed by Peterhouse at the University...
  
   with Eve Best
  Eve Best
  Eve Best is an English actress, best known for her roles as Dr. O'Hara in the Showtime television series Nurse Jackie, as Wallis Simpson in the 2010 film The King's Speech, and Dolley Madison in the 2011 American Experience television special about that First Lady.-Early life and education:Best...
  
   (2005)http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/6983
• Awake and Sing!
  Awake and Sing!
  Awake and Sing! is a drama written by American playwright Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced by The Group Theatre in 1935.-Summary and characters:...
  
  by Clifford Odets
  Clifford Odets
  Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
  
   directed by Michael Attenborough
  Michael Attenborough
  The Hon. Michael John Attenborough is a successful English theatre director. His parents are the actors Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough and Sheila Sim, Lady Attenborough...
  
   with Stockard Channing
  Stockard Channing
  Stockard Channing is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its...
  
   (September 2007)http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/18166/awake-and-sing
• Cloud Nine
  Cloud Nine (play)
  Cloud Nine is a two-act play written by British playwright Caryl Churchill after workshops with the Joint Stock Theatre Company in late 1978 and first performed at Dartington College of Arts, Devon, on 14 February 1979....
  
  by Caryl Churchill
  Caryl Churchill
  Caryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer...
  
   directed by Thea Sharrock
  Thea Sharrock
  Thea Sharrock is an award-winning English theatre director. In 2001, when at age 24 she became artistic director of London's Southwark Playhouse, she was the youngest artistic director in British theatre....
  
  
• Marianne Dreams
  Marianne Dreams
  Marianne Dreams is a children's fantasy novel by Catherine Storr.-Plot introduction:Marianne is a young girl who is bedridden with a long-term illness. She draws a picture to fill her time, and finds that she spends her dreams within the picture she has drawn...
  
  by Catherine Storr
  Catherine Storr
  Catherine Storr was an English children's writer, best known for her novel Marianne Dreams and for a series of books about a wolf ineptly pursuing a young girl, beginning with Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf.-Life:She was born in Kensington, London, one of three children of a barrister, Arthur...
  
  , adapted for the stage by Moira Buffini
  Moira Buffini
  Moira Buffini is an English dramatist, director and actor.-Career:Buffini was born in Cheshire to Irish parents, and trained as an actor at the Welsh College of Music and Drama. For Jordan, co-written with Anna Reynolds in 1992, she won a Time Out Award for her performance and Writers' Guild Award...
  
  , directed by Will Tuckett
• The Homecoming
  The Homecoming
  The Homecoming is a two-act play written in 1964 by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and first published in 1965. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play and its 40th-anniversary Broadway production at the Cort Theatre was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for "Best Revival...
  
  by Harold Pinter
  Harold Pinter
  Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
  
  , directed by Michael Attenborough
  Michael Attenborough
  The Hon. Michael John Attenborough is a successful English theatre director. His parents are the actors Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough and Sheila Sim, Lady Attenborough...
  
  
• The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
  The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
  The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a 2005 play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis first staged off-Broadway at The Public Theater on 2 March 2005 directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.-Plot summary:...
  
  by Steven Adly Guirgis directed by Rupert Goold
  Rupert Goold
  Rupert Goold is an English theatre director. He is the artistic director of Headlong Theatre and from 2010 he will be an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare Company.- Early years :...
  
   (2008)http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/judas-rev.htm
• Rosmersholm
  Rosmersholm
  Rosmersholm is a play written in 1886 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In the estimation of many critics the piece is Ibsen's masterwork, only equalled by The Wild Duck of 1884...
  
  by Henrik Ibsen
  Henrik Ibsen
  Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
  
  , directed by Anthony Page (2008)
• Waste
  Waste
  Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...
  
  by Harley Granville Barker, directed by Samuel West
  Samuel West
  Samuel Alexander Joseph West is an English actor and theatre director. He is perhaps best known for his role in Howards End and his work on stage. He also starred in the award-winning play ENRON...
  
   (2008)
• In a Dark Dark House
  In A Dark Dark House
  In A Dark Dark House is a 2007 play by Neil LaBute. It had its world premiere at the Lucille Lortel Theater on May 16. It ran through June 23, 2007, under the direction of Carolyn Cantor, produced by the MCC Theater in New York City...
  
  by Neil LaBute, directed by Michael Attenborough
  Michael Attenborough
  The Hon. Michael John Attenborough is a successful English theatre director. His parents are the actors Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough and Sheila Sim, Lady Attenborough...
  
   (2008)
• Duet for One
  Duet for One
  Duet for One is a film adapted from an award-winning British play, a two-hander by Tom Kempinski, about a world-famous concert violinist named Stephanie Anderson who is suddenly struck with multiple sclerosis. It is set in London and directed by Andrei Konchalovsky...
  
  by Tom Kempinski
  Tom Kempinski
  Tom Kempinski is an English playwright and actor. He is best known for his 1980 play Duet for One, which was a major success in London and New York and which has been much revived since. Kempinski also wrote the screenplay for the movie version of Duet for One...
  
  , directed by Matthew Lloyd (2009)
• Parlour Song by Jez Butterworth
  Jez Butterworth
  Jeremy “Jez” Butterworth is an English dramatist and film director.-Life and career:Butterworth was born in London, England, and attended Verulam Comprehensive School, St Albans and St John's College, Cambridge...
  
  , directed by Ian Rickson
  Ian Rickson
  Ian Rickson is a British theatre and film director. He was the Artistic Director at the Royal Court Theatre in London from 1998 to 2006, and currently works freelance....
  
   (2009)
• When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell
  Andrew Bovell
  Andrew Bovell is an Australian writer for theatre, film and television.-Life:Bovell was born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia and until recently lived in Adelaide, South Australia before moving to New York. He has recently now moved back to the Adelaide Hills, South Australia...
  
  , directed by Michael Attenborough
  Michael Attenborough
  The Hon. Michael John Attenborough is a successful English theatre director. His parents are the actors Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough and Sheila Sim, Lady Attenborough...
  
   (2009)
• Judgment Day by Ödön von Horváth
  Ödön von Horváth
  Edmund Josef von Horváth was a German-writing Austro-Hungarian-born playwright and novelist...
  
  , in a new version by Christopher Hampton
  Christopher Hampton
  Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of...
  
   directed by James Macdonald (2009)
• Mrs Klein by Nicholas Wright
  Nicholas Wright (playwright)
  Nicholas Wright is a British dramatist. He opened and ran the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, was joint artistic director of the Royal Court and is a former literary manager and associate director of the Royal National Theatre. Wright began acting as a child, and trained at The...
  
  , directed by Thea Sharrock
  Thea Sharrock
  Thea Sharrock is an award-winning English theatre director. In 2001, when at age 24 she became artistic director of London's Southwark Playhouse, she was the youngest artistic director in British theatre....
  
   (2009)
• Rope by Patrick Hamilton, directed by Roger Michell
  Roger Michell
  Roger Michell is an English theatre, television and film director.-Personal life:He was born in Pretoria, South Africa but spent significant parts of his childhood in Beirut, Damascus and Prague as his father was a diplomat. He was educated at Clifton College where he became a member of Brown's...
  
  (2009-10)

External links

• Official Almeida Theatre website