A Shakespeare classic, a hugely popular spy thriller and a drama set in a close-knit community in Liverpool are part of the spring 2019 season at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme.
The theatre, named the most welcoming in the West Midlands in the UK Theatre awards, will join forces with Northern Broadsides to stage Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
Reece Dinsdale, who played George Jones in David Hare's The Absence of War, a Headlong Theatre presentation in 2015, takes the role of Benedick. His credits also include (the fall of) The Master Builder by Zinnie Harris after Henrik Ibsen at West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2017.
Conrad Nelson, Northern Broadsides artistic director, will direct Much Ado About Nothing which will run at the New Vic from Friday 8 February until Saturday 2 March before going on a national tour.
The New Vic's artistic director Theresa Heskins will direct Patrick Barlow's adaptation of John Buchan and Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. Rebecca Brewer, Gareth Cassidy, Michael Hugo and Nicholas Richardson will create more than 120 characters in the “side-splitting” comedy which runs from Friday 8 until Saturday 30 March.
Completing the season will be Lizzie Nunnery's Intemperance, shortlisted for the Meyer-Whitworth award in 2007. Love and hope blossom against the harshest of circumstances in Intemperance, set in Liverpool in 1854, which tells the story of a family who dream of a better life. New Vic associate director Zoë Waterman directs the production from Friday 5 until Saturday 20 April.