From the return of The Doctor starring Juliet Stevenson to Erin Doherty in The Crucible at the National Theatre, September's theatre shows are looking starry. There's also the timely UK debut of Eureka Day at the Old Vic to get excited about, and the first play from director Richard Eyre.
Here are the best plays opening this month, plus the ones to book ahead…
Barber Shop Chronicles writer Inua Ellams adapts the Ancient Greek tragedy of Antigone as the closing production of Regent's Park Open Air Theatre's 90th birthday season. Max Webster (Life of Pi, Henry V) directs.
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Back by popular demand: Robert Icke's The Doctor, starring Juliet Stevenson, finally gets its West End after a stunning, pre-pandemic premiere at the Almeida.
Arthur Miller's 1953 classic about the witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts has long been a favourite on school syllabuses, but it rarely graces the London stage. This autumn, National Theatre regular Lyndsey Turner (Under Milk Wood, Top Girls) directs an 'urgent' new take on the story in the Olivier theatre, starring Brendan Cowell (Yerma) as the accused farmer John Proctor and TV star Erin Doherty (The Crown, Chloe) as manipulative ring leader Abigail Williams.
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A timely arrival on the London stage, US playwright Jonathan Spector's Eureka Day is a comedy charting the fallout among board members of a liberal school in Berkeley, California, following an outbreak of mumps. The play, which premiered Off Broadway before the pandemic, sees the school's progressive policies come under threat in the face of a public health scare.
Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actor Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets, The Sessions) leads the cast of director Katy Rudd's production, which also stars Kirsten Foster (Life of Pi, West End), Mark McKinney (Superstore), Ben Schnetzer (Pride) and Susan Kelechi Watson (This Is Us).
Dipo Baruwa-Etti's new drama The Clinic covers a lot of bases - activism, privilege, politics, the NHS and compassion among them. All this is explored through the story of a woman, Wunmi, who is looking to end her own life, but who ends up being brought into a family of charity workers, therapists and public sector workers. But has Wunmi walked into a refuge or a trap?
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Lauded Belgian director Ivo Van Hove returns to London with his take on Édouard Louis's internationally acclaimed book Who Killed My Father. When a son returns to the rural French town in which he grew up, he has questions over who is responsible for his father's decrepit state.
The production is a rare chance to see Hans Kesting perform the one-man show in English.
Richard Eyre made his career as a director, most notably running the National Theatre from 1988 to 1997. But proving it's never too late to try something new, the nearly 80-year-old has penned his first play, The Snail House, which he himself directs at Hampstead Theatre. The fictional story follows a knighted government medical advisor, who's throwing himself a lavish party as a pat on the back for his good work during the pandemic. But amid the champagne flutes and silver service, there's something unsettling at play.
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The Bush Theatre's artistic director Lynette Linton makes her National Theatre debut with a revival of African American playwright Pearl Cleage's 1995 play. Set in 1930, during the Harlem Renaissance, it follows four friends whose artistic dreams are threatened by the arrival of a stranger from Alabama. Giles Terera (Death of England: Face to Face, Hamilton) heads up the cast.
Paul Mescal of Normal People fame stars alongside Lydia Wilson (The Duchess of Malfi) and Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts) in a new production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire at the Almeida Theatre. And who better to direct it than the ever brilliant Rebecca Frecknall, who delivered the theatre's sensational take on Williams' Summer and Smoke in 2018/19.
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Emma Corrin (The Crown, Anna X on the West End) takes the lead role in Neil Bartlett's new adaptation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando. The Michael Grandage Company is behind the production, which opens at the Garrick Theatre this November. Corrin, who came out as non-binary in 2021, plays Orlando, who famously changes sex from a man to a woman and lives for centuries without ageing over 30.
Tickets are now on sale and start at £10.
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Now for one of the most intriguing and frankly exciting theatre highlights of 2022: the great Elton John has teamed up with lauded playwright James Graham to turn the true story of American evangelist, singer and TV personality Tammy Faye into a musical. With the help of her husband Jim Bakker and a sizeable TV audience, Faye strove to put the fun back into religion.
Katie Brayben (Beautiful) stars as Tammy Faye and Tony Award-nominee Andrew Rannells (The Book of Mormon, Girls) as Jim, while the Almeida's Rupert Goold directs.
Delivering thrills and chills, the Globe's winter season in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse sees director Jude Christian take on Titus Andronicus, Holly Race Roughan refresh Henry V and Sean Holmes present a first for the theatre in the form of an indoor-outdoor take on The Winter's Tale.
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