Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre has announced its 40th anniversary season, with performances from Kathryn Hunter, Daniel Rigby and Maxine Peake and a full-scale musical for Christmas.
Peake will continue her collaboration with Exchange artistic director Sarah Frankcom when she opens the season as Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. Following this, Daniel Rigby will play Manchester maths genius Alan Turing in a revival of Hugh Whitemore's Breaking the Code, directed by Robert Hastie.
For the festive period, Derek Bond (Little Shop of Horrors) will return to the Exchange for another major musical: Neil Simon's Sweet Charity with a score by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Dorothy Fields. Charity Hope Valentine will be played by Swedish actress Kaisa Hammarlund.
Kathryn Hunter returns to Manchester after her performance in Kafka's Monkey at HOME last year in Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, directed by Jo Clifford in a co-production with Graeae Theatre Company.
In the Studio, Katherine Soper's Wish List, winner of the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting will have its première directed by Matthew Xia in a co-production with The Royal Court Theatre.
In October, B!rth is an international festival developed by the Royal Exchange Theatre and The Oglesby Charitable Trust that has commissioned seven playwrights from seven different countries (Kenya, India, China, Syria, UK, USA and Brazil) to each explore her country's approach to childbirth. This event will be part of Manchester's year as European City of Science 2016.
Tickets for the new season will be on public sale from 21 June 2016.