Journalist Deborah Linton on Maya Arad Yasur's play Amsterdam

When Matthew Xia first spoke to me about Amsterdam, it was clear that while this is a play triggered by Europe then, it is overwhelmingly a piece for Europe now. 

Full cast is today announced for AMSTERDAM, which previews from 6 September with tickets from £15. Matthew Xia directs Dan Abelson, Fiston Barek, Michal Horowicz and Hara Yannas will appear in this strikingly audacious thriller, which awakens unsettling feelings of collective identity, foreignness and alienation by Israeli playwright Maya Arad Yasur. The play won the Jury Prize at Stueckemarkt 2018, held as part of Berliner Festpiele’s Theater Treffen. Matthew Xia (Blood Knot) returns to the OT to direct, in his first production as Artistic Director of ATC, in a co-production between them, the OT and Theatre Royal Plymouth. It will embark upon a UK tour from February to May 2020.

Adeyinka Akinrinade, Nicholas Armfield, Matthew Douglas, Cate Hamer, Luke MacGregor, Dylan Mason, Robert Neumark Jones, Eve Ponsonby, Gyuri Sarossy and Nathan Welsh will feature in the 2019 Directors’ Festival at the Orange Tree Theatre. The festival is a programme of four productions in repertoire from 3 – 11 August: the UK premieres of Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography written by Australia’s Declan Greene and Sadness and Joy in the Life of Giraffes written by Portugal’s Tiago Rodrigues, and revivals of The Mikvah Project written by Josh Azouz (Buggy Baby) and Pilgrims written by Elinor Cook (Out of Love).

4,000 £15 TICKETS FOR PLAYS BY ARINZÉ KENE AND BERNARD SHAW, PLUS A UK PREMIERE BY MAYA ARAD YASUR FEATURE IN OUR NEW SEASON 

Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu is the winner of the 2019 JMK Award, this year in a new partnership with the Orange Tree Theatre, with his production of Arinzé Kene’s Little Baby Jesus forming a core part of our annual programming. 

Orange Tree Artistic Director Paul Miller directs the first major London production in a generation of Terence Rattigan’s Blitz-set comedy While the Sun Shines. It follows his acclaimed production of Rattigan’s French Without Tears, which played two sold out runs at the OT before touring across the country.

The Festival will feature the UK premieres of Declan Greene’s Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography from Australia and Sadness and Joy in the Life of Giraffes by Tiago Rodrigues from Portugal, and new productions of The Mikvah Project by Josh Azouz (Buggy Baby) and Pilgrims by Elinor Cook (Out of Love). They will play in repertoire from 3 to 11 August 2019.

With our production of Athol Fugard's Blood Knot playing until 20 April, South African theatremaker Ameera Conrad writes about why she is proud to call herself "Coloured"

Lucy Briggs-Owen, Zoe West and Tilda Wickham will appear in the new play Out of Water, about a lesbian couple expecting a baby, written by Zoe Cooper. 

With Rose Lewenstein's new play Cougar about what - and who - we comsume playing until 2 March, journalist Emily Bobrow writes exclusively about human behaviour towards the ever-growing evidence of climate change.

Nathan McMullen and Kalungi Ssebandeke play brothers Morrie and Zach in Matthew Xia’s major new revival of the 1961 play Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, who has been a vital part of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. The Designer of the production is Basia BiÅ?kowska, Lighting Designer Ciarán Cunningham, Sound Designer & Composer Xana, and Sophie Parrott CDG.