Following a major renovation, London's Donmar Warehouse will reopen in September with Inua Ellams’ audience-led poetry event Search Party.
Prompted by audience suggestions, poet and playwright Ellams (Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half-God of Rainfall) will search through his archive of work and perform a reactive and spontaneous selection. Performances are scheduled for September 21–25.
Love and Other Acts of Violence, a new play by Cordelia Lynn, will follow, running October 7–November 27. Directed by Elayce Ismail and starring Abigail Weinstock and Richard Katz (Pericles, The Lorax), the drama concerns a young, Jewish physicist and a left-wing poet, who meet at a party and fall in love. As society splinters around them, the couple's struggle to survive erupts into violence.
Olivier winner Rory Kinnear (Othello, The Man of Mode) will then star in Tim Price’s new stage adaptation of Ruben Östlund’s film about a family falling apart, Force Majeure, December 10–February 5, 2022. Initially scheduled to run on the Donmar stage in summer 2020, the production will be helmed by Donmar Artistic Director Michael Longhurst with design by Jon Bausor.
William Shakespeare's Henry V will play the Donmar February 11–April 9. Kit Harington (The Vote, True West) will star in the title role under the direction of Max Webster.
The season will conclude April 15–June 4 with Pulitzer Prize winner Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Marys Seacole, about the pioneering Jamaican nurse, and what it means to be a woman who is paid to care. Nadia Latif will direct with designs by Tom Scutt. Casting will be announced at a later date.
The Donmar has also announced the appointment of two new associate artists: actor, writer, and producer Joan Iyiola and director, dramaturg, and designer Zoë Svendsen.
Artistic Director Michael Longhurst says: “I’m thrilled we’ve managed to expose the Donmar’s warehouse bones during our essential building works; stripping out the cramped bars and improving accessibility to make a welcoming space for artists and audiences to return to. We’re back with a season that mines history to examine our present; that holds society to account through personal stories; that is laced with comedy and poetry and packed full of talent for our shared entertainment. I’m delighted that the Donmar is also mounting its first local comprehensive schools tour, giving young people and young actors opportunities they’ve been denied during the pandemic. We can’t wait to see you in person again!”
The Donmar Warehouse production of Nick Payne's Constellations, directed by Michael Longhurst, is currently playing the Vaudeville Theatre through September 12 with four different casts. Longhurst's production of Mike Lew's Teenage Dick will tour schools across the Donmar's home boroughs of Camden and Westminster July 5–16.
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