Londonist is reporting that a musical by singer-songwriter Tori Amos, a new play by Mike Leigh and Simon Russell Beale playing Josef Stalin are all part of the National Theatre’s plans for next year.
Amos, a popular independent musician, has written music and lyrics for a play based on The Light Princess, a fairytale by the 19th-century Scottish writer George MacDonald. It will be staged in early 2012, directed by Marianne Elliott.
The details of Mike Leigh’s new play remain a secret to everyone but the playwright-director and his cast until the opening in September.
And West End theater legend Simon Russell Beale will play the Soviet dictator in Collaborators, the debut play by Trainspotting and Shallow Grave writer John Hodge. The play, which imagines a meeting between Stalin and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov, is set to open in October.
Other season highlights include A Comedy of Errors, directed as a Christmassy family-friendly Shakespeare show by Dominic Cooke from the Royal Court; a new documentary musical called London Road; and a new version of Carlo Goldoni’s A Servant of Two Masters. The latter play has been updated by Richard Bean, moved to 1960s Brighton, and renamed One Man, Two Guvnors.
Read more, and for more information, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk.
