London's Donmar Warehouse will stage Phyllida Lloyd's all-female Shakespeare trilogy with Harriet Walter at a temporary in King's Cross and will transfer three of its productions to New York.
The new 420-seat in-the-round temporary venue adjacent to King's Cross Station will play host to the Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy for a 13-week repertory season, directed by Phyllida Lloyd and starring Harriet Walter, from 23 September to 17 December 2016.
The trilogy will revive the Donmar's previous all-female productions of Julius Caesar and Henry IV and add a new production of The Tempest, set, like the previous two, in a women's prison with Harriet Walter as Prospero. They will be joined by some of the Henry IV and Julius Caesar cast—Jade Anouka, Shiloh Coke, Jackie Clune, Karen Dunbar, Clare Dunne, Zainab Hasan, Jennifer Joseph, Sophie Stanton, Sharon Rooney and Caroline Valdés—with new company members including Sheila Atim and Martina Laird.
Director Phyllida Lloyd said, "the premise was to take the most voiceless group you might imagine—women prisoners, refugees from our culture if you like, people without any access to the Internet even—and watch them electrify an audience with nothing but Shakespeare's language. Harriet's work ethic defines the whole thing: mighty verse speaking, the utmost humility and the greatest good humour. The company will follow her anywhere."
The Tempest will also be the concluding production of an eight-month Donmar season in New York with performances at St Ann’s Warehouse in January 2017, following Artistic Director Josie Rourke’s production of Privacy by James Graham, starring Daniel Radcliffe, at The Public Theater in July and Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses starring Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber at the Booth Theatre on Broadway from October.