Following the success of Royal & Derngate’s Young America season which transferred to the National Theatre for a sell-out run earlier this year, the theatre’s Artistic Director Laurie Sansom has been invited to direct a new play as part of the National’s newly announced Spring 2011 season.
Sansom will return to the National to direct The Holy Rosenbergs, written by playwright Ryan Craig. Craig wrote the English version of Our Class for the National and his new play addresses tribal loyalties through the eyes of a London family man. The play will star Henry Goodman, who won an Olivier Award for his role as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at the National. Goodman can currently be seen in Yes, Prime Minister in the West End.
The Young America season – Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon and Tennessee Williams’ Spring Storm – was first staged at Royal & Derngate in Autumn 2009 to critical acclaim, before transferring to the National’s Cottesloe Theatre from April to July 2010. In the recent Theatrical Management Association Awards, Laurie Sansom won the Best Director category for his work on these productions, and in the recently announced shortlist for the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, Laurie is in the running for Best Director once again.
“It’s a real honour to be invited to direct for the National,” said Laurie. “The Holy Rosenbergs is a great new piece of writing and I’m really excited about working with playwright Ryan Craig. However I’m also already looking ahead to Eden End, the next production I’ll be directing back in Northampton in the summer.”
The Holy Rosenbergs will be performed in the Cottesloe at the National Theatre from 8 March 2011.
