Stage Kiss tickets

When two actors with a messy history are cast as lovers in the same play, they are directed to kiss one another in every show old feelings resurface. This is the heart of Stage Kiss, Sarah Ruhl’s incredibly sharp and bittersweet romantic comedy, directed by Blanche McIntyre. Book Stage Kiss tickets on London Theatre.

Stage Kiss is a play set in New Haven in 2011, and it begins in an audition room where an actress known exclusively as She unexpectedly lands a lead role in a revival of a soon-to-be-forgotten 1930s melodrama called The Last Kiss. There is only one problem that She is faced with: her co-lead in romance, He, is an old lover she has not seen in years. As rehearsals unfold and stage kisses continue one after the other, the boundary between a good performance and personal feelings begins to blur. Their chemistry begins to resurface, new complications arise, and what started as a comedy unfolding onstage becomes a more interesting portrayal of intimacy and second chances.

The Hampstead Theatre production is directed by Blanche McIntyre and marks the UK premiere of the play, following its New York run in 2014. McIntyre is reunited with Ruhl after their collaboration on Letters from Max in 2025.

Stage Kiss in London boasts a formidable cast, including MyAnna Buring as She and Patrick Kennedy as He, with Toto Bruin, Oliver Dimsdale, James Phoon, Rolf Saxon, and Jill Winternitz completing the company.

The creative team includes designer Robert Innes Hopkins, lighting designer Oliver Fenwick, sound designer Gregory Clarke, composer Grant Olding, and movement, intimacy, and fight director Yarit Dor.

Stage Kiss combines theatrical jokes and plays within plays as genuine emotional unease gives way to a witty love story that is both funny and incredibly sincere.