Michael Longhurst announces second Donmar Warehouse season

Artistic director Michael Longhurst has announced his second season at the helm of the Donmar Warehouse, which will feature a play by a Pulitzer Prize winner, a double bill in response to the climate emergency, and a world premiere of a film adaptation.

The season begins with In the Blood, which will be the UK premiere of the play by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks' 2001 play Topdog/Underdog saw her become the first African American woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and her earlier work In The Blood is based on the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel The Scarlet Letter. It follows a mother as she tries to make a better life for her five children despite various obstacles standing in her way.

The play will be directed by Gate Theatre artistic director Ellen McDougall, at the Donmar for the first time, and runs from 17^th April to 6^th June.

The Contingency Plan will follow In The Blood, and is Steve Waters' critically-acclaimed double bill of plays about the climate crisis. The plays, On the Beach and Resilience, were first produced by the Bush Theatre in 2009 and directed by Longhurst and Theatr Clwyd artistic director Tamara Harvey.

Co-produced by the Donmar and Mold's Theatr Clwyd, Chelsea Walker will direct On The Beach, while Caroline Steinbeis will direct Resilience. The plays will run in London from 10^th June to 1^st August, following an earlier run in Wales in the spring.

In response to the production of The Contingency Plan, Nina Segal and Joseph Hancock will 'explore visions of a climate positive future' in Assembly on 12^th and 13^th June.

The final production of the season will be Force Majeure, an adaptation of the Ruben Östlund film of the same name. The subject of the film is the tensions between a family where the father prioritised his own safety during an impending avalanche over that of his wife and two young children.

Tim Price's adaptation will be directed by Longhurst, and runs from 7^th August to 26^th September.

_{Photo credit: La Citta Vita (flickr)}