New 2018/19 season announced at Almeida Theatre

Simon Russell Beale, Patsy Ferran and Pearl Chanda will star in productions during the season

A new season at the Almeida Theatre in London has been announced, and it will feature a Shakespeare, a Chekhov and two world premieres.

Simon Russell Beale will star in Joe Hill-Gibbins' production of The Tragedy of King Richard the Second from 10^th December. This new production, which follows a king who inherits an independent state and the limits of his power, will have designs by Ultz.

Almeida artistic director Rupert Goold will direct a new play by Anne Washburn called Shipwreck in the New Year. The play is set on an upstate farmhouse, when one of its inhabitants is invited to dinner with the President of the United States. With designs by Miriam Buether, it will run from 11^th February to 30^th March.

Rebecca Frecknall will then direct Cordelia Lynn's version of Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, starring Patsy Ferran and Pearl Chanda. The piece, which is updated and set in London in 2019, rather than 1901 Moscow, will run from 8^th April to 1^st June.

Three Sisters will also form part of the Almeida for Free Festival, offering young people the chance to see the play for free for the week commencing 27^th May.

Goold will then direct the world premiere of David Farr's adaptation of The Hunt, by Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm. The play will be based on the 2012 Danish film starring Mikkelsen, and is about a man in a small Danish village who is wrongly accused of paedophilia. It will run from 17^th June to 3^rd August.

The season concludes with Mike Bartlett's version of Maxim Gorky's Vassa Zheleznova, titled simply Vassa. Doctor Foster writer Bartlett recently staged his new play Albion at the Almeida, and Vassa will be directed by Tinuke Craig, and run from 7^th October to 23^rd November.  

_{Photo credit: Philip Vile}