The Stage

Royal Court reveals autumn line-up

Published Thursday 12 June 2008 at 17:55 by Alistair Smith

London’s Royal Court Theatre is to stage a new play charting a fictional US presidential election, just as the real race between Barack Obama and John McCain reaches its climax.

Now or Later by Christopher Shinn will run in the Royal Court Downstairs from September 3 to October 18, while polling is due to start in the US on November 4.

The play, which forms part of the venue’s autumn season, will feature Domhnall Gleeson, Adam James and Eddie Redmayne and will be directed by Royal Court artistic director Dominic Cooke.

Cooke will also direct Wig Out, a new work set among US drag queens written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, while the venue will also host new plays by Alecky Blythe, Leo Butler and Alexi Kaye Campbell, all exploring love, sex and sexuality in modern Britain.

Meanwhile, in celebration of Caryl Churchill’s 70th birthday, the theatre has invited ten leading playwrights, including Martin Crimp, Debbie Tucker Green, Joe Penhall, Mark Ravenhill and Wallace Shawn, to each direct their favourite Churchill play.

Cooke also revealed that the first year of his tenure at the venue had seen the Court play to 91% attendance, with visits from under-18s up by more than 300% from 1,135 in 2006 to 4,670 in 2007.

Launching the autumn season, he said: “When I took over at the Royal Court, I said that I wanted the theatre to ask two questions - ‘Who are we today?’ and ‘What is a play?’ The 18 months since have seen us address those questions, taking significant risks, and being rewarded for those risks with a theatre that was 91% full last year. And that experimentation will continue.”