James McArdle, who won a Theatre World Award for his performance as Louis in the recent Broadway revival of Angels in America, will star in the title role of the National Theatre production of Peter Gynt, by David Hare after Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt.

Performances will begin in the Olivier Theatre in July 2019 in a co-production with Edinburgh International Festival. Jonathan Kent will direct with set and costume design by Richard Hudson.

Hare kidnaps Ibsen’s most famous hero and runs away with him into the 21st century, where he’s propelled into a free-wheeling world of music, dance, poetry, weddings, coronations, trolls, and two-headed children.

Peter Gynt will transfer to Edinburgh for the International Festival in August 2019.

In other National Theatre news, a new version of Molière’s comic masterpiece, Tartuffe, by John Donnelly, will open in February in the Lyttelton. Blanche McIntyre will direct with set and costume design by Robert Jones, lighting design by Oliver Fenwick, and music and sound design by Ben and Max Ringham.

Top Girls, Caryl Churchill’s innovative play about a country divided by its own ambitions, will also play the Lyttelton beginning March 26. Lyndsey Turner will direct with set design by Ian MacNeil, costume design by Merle Hensel, lighting design by Jack Knowles, and sound design by Christopher Shutt.

Hansard, the debut play from actor Simon Woods, which opens in September in the Lyttelton, will be directed by Simon Godwin. The play, which looks at personal and political responsibility and our collective accountability for the lives changed by the votes we make, will co-star Lindsay Duncan and Alex Jennings.

Anna, a new sonic collaboration created by Ella Hickson and Ben and Max Ringham, opens in the Dorfman Theatre in May. This headphone-based sound thriller will give the audience intimate access to communist East Berlin. Set over one night in 1968, a young couple have their love tested by increasing pressure from the state. The production will be directed by Natalie Abrahami with set and costume design by Vicki Mortimer and movement by Anna Morrissey.

Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker will return to the Dorfman in October with the European premiere of her play The Antipodes, directed by Lila Neugebauer. And, Richard Pryor on Fire, a one-man play written by and featuring Lenny Henry as the legendary comic, directed by Paulette Randall, will open in the Dorfman in 2020.