Triumph, the quarter-hour play by Caryl Churchill that the Almeida stages from 16 October, will not be premiering alone: The Public Theater in New York has its own production running at the same time, and the American one opens eight days sooner.
When we reported the Islington run last week, the Almeida Theatre appeared to have Triumph to itself. It now turns out to hold half of a joint world premiere. The Public Theater announced on 30 September that it is staging Caryl Churchill's new short play in parallel with the London production, and the New York company will get there first, by a little over a week.
Nothing changes at the London end. James Macdonald directs Kate O'Flynn and Matthew Beard for a single week, Friday 16 to Friday 23 October 2026, and the piece lasts roughly fifteen minutes. Churchill drew on Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars for a story about Iris, press secretary to the emperors of Rome, whose attraction to a reporter threatens the general contentment of the court. Anyone who has not yet booked should know that the Almeida's own listing now shows the run as sold out.
In Manhattan the play is directed by Saheem Ali, the Public's Associate Artistic Director and Resident Director, with Annaleigh Ashford as Iris and Joe Tapper as Marcus. It runs from 8 to 18 October in the Shiva Theater, one of the auditoriums inside the Public's Lafayette Street home, so the two stagings share a single weekend. The arrangement there is quite different from Islington's: the Public is treating it as a free pop-up, slotted in on selected dates ahead of its mainstage performances, open to anyone who reserves a place in advance.
The New York theatre is also explicit about why now. It has scheduled the piece to land in advance of the American midterm elections, and its artistic director Oskar Eustis singled out "the legendary Caryl Churchill's new 15-minute play" when setting out the remainder of a 2026-27 season that has now grown to 18 productions. The same announcement brings a British director to the Public in the spring: Patrick Marber will stage the New York premiere of Nathan Englander's What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.
London audiences who miss Triumph have a longer Churchill evening to look forward to shortly afterwards, as the National Theatre's revival of Cloud 9 opens in the Lyttelton on Monday 2 November 2026 and is booking until Wednesday 13 January 2027.
