stage
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From Miller’s Crossing to Fifty Shades of Grey, Marcia Gay Harden has always played hard-boiled women. Her UK stage debut, in Sweet Bird of Youth, is no exception
On hellish roles, washed-up stars and nipple clamp tweetsFrom Miller’s Crossing to Fifty Shades of Grey, Marcia Gay Harden has always played hard-boiled women. Her UK stage debut, in Sweet Bird of Youth, is no exception
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‘Inhumane’ proportions, nightmarish sightlines, minuscule playing space … Top theatre figures discuss the perils – and joys – of the Swan, Lyttelton, Wanamaker Playhouse and Royal Exchange stages
How to handle Britain's trickiest theatres‘Inhumane’ proportions, nightmarish sightlines, minuscule playing space … Top theatre figures discuss the perils – and joys – of the Swan, Lyttelton, Wanamaker Playhouse and Royal Exchange stages -
The last performance of the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus spurs its ringmaster to reflect on ‘the bedrock of American pop culture’ after 146 years
Performers and crowds bid farewell to Ringling Bros circusThe last performance of the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus spurs its ringmaster to reflect on ‘the bedrock of American pop culture’ after 146 years -
Richard Nelson’s trilogy about a beleaguered Democrat family combines the personal and the political – and suggests a contemporary ChekhovThe Gabriels review – portraits of the dissolving American dreamRichard Nelson’s trilogy about a beleaguered Democrat family combines the personal and the political – and suggests a contemporary Chekhov
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Drawing on his memories of Northern Ireland, and images of violence from the Middle East, the author returns to the violent story of Clytemnestra and her childrenHow I rewrote a Greek tragedyDrawing on his memories of Northern Ireland, and images of violence from the Middle East, the author returns to the violent story of Clytemnestra and her children
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Zoë Coombs Marr, Adrienne Truscott and Ursula Martinez combine forces to eviscerate criticsWith Wild Bore, three comedians at the top of their game deliver a meta exploration of criticism and performance that is truly, outrageously funny
talking points
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Freeman and Lancashire to star in James Graham's Labour comedyLabour of Love, to be staged in the West End, is the latest political play by the dramatist who has also written two short scripts about Brexit for the Guardian
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Edward Albee estate denies rights to production over casting of black actorA planned Oregon performance of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was halted after the playwright’s estate refused to allow a black actor to play the role of Nick
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Boris Charmatz's rooftop dance reclaims cities from terrorHis dancers have performed at Tate Modern and been lifted by cranes. Now, the maverick choreographer is taking audiences to the top of a multistorey carpark for a feverish protest show
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Geoff Norcott, the standup who turned ToryHe’s a likable performer capitalising on the idea that most of his fellow comedians are lefties. So is Norcott’s show Conswervative more wind-up than battle cry?
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It’s not ‘low’ to point out that when Theresa May says the same thing over and over again she sounds as if she has dementia. It’s a joke Dad would appreciateYes, I make fun of Dad’s dementia – and he’d be delighted if he knew why
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Home to the weirdo comics you won’t find on Live at the ApolloThe wild comedy night that hosts aggressive poetry, ‘sexy American girl cousins’ and unlimited oddballs is 10 years old – and as ramshackle as ever
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The show blasting sexism in comedyFed up with heckles, hostility and predatory promoters, Kiri Pritchard-McLean set out to detail the industry’s misogyny in a raucous, revelatory performance
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Queer King's Cross in the 80sTom Marshman’s raw one-man show uses lip-synching and dancing to remember the lost pubs and clubs where LGBT people partied and campaigned
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The monstrous world of WoyzeckWhen Jack Thorne was asked to adapt Georg Büchner’s fragmented masterpiece he screamed inside. He explains how he got to the soul of the play
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Lemn Sissay on hearing his harrowing abuse report live on stageIn a blistering one-off show, poet Lemn Sissay heard – for the first time – the record of his suffering as a child in care. He explains why the theatre was the safest place to relive his beatings and betrayal
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RSC activates Large Hadron Collider drama by Oppenheimer playwrightTom Morton-Smith’s The Earthworks, set just before the LHC was switched on at Cern, is the latest collision between science and theatre
pictures & video
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Miriam Buether's stunning designsFrom a play inspired by Edward Snowden to an opera about Anna Nicole Smith, Miriam Buether’s stage designs always astonish audiences
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The sensational stage history of SaloméThe biblical sorceress dances across two of Britain’s stages this summer, in shows at the National and the RSC. Explore past versions of the story
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Top teachers on stageA new production of Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On has Richard Wilson playing the headmaster. Take a look at theatre’s best school staff through the years
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Angels in America at the National TheatreTwenty-five years after it was first staged in London, Tony Kushner’s inventive play about the Aids crisis is back. The cast includes Nathan Lane, Andrew Garfield, Russell Tovey and Denise Gough
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From smirking schoolboy to deadly drifterOver a quarter of a century, Jude Law has blazed through a succession of challenging and controversial theatre productions on the way to his latest role as a lover with murder on his mind in Obsession at the Barbican, London
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Antony Gormley's iron men come alive for A Winter's TaleWriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce and director Carl Hunter reimagine Shakespeare’s late tragedy in an otherwordly film set amongst the statues of Antony Gormley’s installation Another Place on Crosby beach in Liverpool
you may have missed
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'I'd begun to feel like yesterday's cripple'He’s staged Thalidomide! A Musical, stormed American TV and starred in an explicit fairytale with his wife. Now, Mat Fraser is raising hell as Shakespeare’s royal villain – without the hump
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Welcome to Fallow Cross: inside the secret village built by PunchdrunkPunchdrunk scour cities for places to house their theatre spectaculars. Now they’ve even created a fully functioning village – complete with cosy pub
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Read exclusive extracts from his posthumous memoirThe great actor on playing with Pelé, channelling Prince Charles and falling in love with his horse
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The show that returns horror to the theatreThe Swedish director Jakop Ahlbom combines stage magic with references to classic scary movies in a cult show that puts audiences through the wringer
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How Kully Thiarai is making theatre for WalesThey both create work that is bold and deeply relevant for local communities, so National Theatre Wales and Kully Thiarai are a perfect fit
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The cabaret about being abandoned and adoptedAs a baby, Veronica Thompson was left in a bag outside a South Korean police station. In an intimate and funny solo performance, she traces her journey through her American childhood and London’s burlesque scene
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Eileen Atkins as Emilia: ‘If wives do fall’Eileen Atkins speaks Emilia’s lines from Othello, act IV scene 3. Emilia, Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s maid, counsels Desdemona on marital fidelity
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Riz Ahmed as Edmund: 'Now, gods, stand up for bastards'Riz Ahmed speaks Edmund’s soliloquy from King Lear, in which Edmund reflects upon being an illegitimate son and plots against his half-brother, Edgar
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Joanna Vanderham as Juliet: ‘The mask of night is on my face’Joanna Vanderham performs Juliet’s speech from the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet
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Camille O'Sullivan as Constance: 'Thou art not holy'Camille O’Sullivan plays Constance in King John, who laments the loss of her son, Arthur, but disputes the suggestion that she has gone mad
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David Morrissey as Richard III: ‘Now is the winter of our discontent’David Morrissey speaks the opening lines from Richard III in which the scheming Richard lays out his plan to turn his brothers, Clarence and the newly enthroned King Edward IV, against each other
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Adrian Lester as Hamlet: ‘To be or not to be’Adrian Lester performs Hamlet’s soliloquy in which the prince considers taking his own life
Music Is Torture review – gig-theatre unleashes devilish dilemmas
Music Is Torture review – gig-theatre unleashes devilish dilemmas