Jeremy Sams directs the first major London revival of Michael Frayn's Democracy as Hampstead Theatre lays out the first half of 2027, a five-play season that also brings four world premieres. Public booking opens on Thursday 19 November.
Hampstead Theatre has set its programme for February to July 2027. Two productions are bound for the Main Stage and three for Hampstead Downstairs, and four of the five are brand-new plays. Members' priority booking is already open, and tickets go on general sale at 10.30am on Thursday 19 November. Further programming and casting are still to come.
Portrait of a Man
The season starts on the Main Stage with the world premiere of Portrait of a Man by Alexis Zegerman, from 11 February to 20 March 2027, directed by Anna Ledwich. It is December 1962, and the painter Elaine de Kooning is called to Florida to paint President John F Kennedy from life for an official portrait. Neither of them knows that he will be dead before the work is finished.
Zegerman is a former writer-in-residence at Hampstead, which staged her first play, Lucky Seven, and her 2022 hit The Fever Syndrome. Ledwich is also a regular at the theatre, where her credits include the Olivier-nominated Dry Powder and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds.
The Rabbi, The Wife & The Prick
Downstairs, Josh Azouz's dark comedy The Rabbi, The Wife & The Prick has its world premiere from 26 February to 3 April 2027. Rene has her civil divorce and is ready to meet someone new, but she never obtained the Get, the Jewish bill of divorce that her former husband has to sign. He refuses. The play follows how far she will go to be free of him.
Hannah Hauer-King, twice nominated for an Olivier, makes her Hampstead debut as director. Holly Gilliam and Robert Delamere produce for MMXX. Azouz's earlier plays include Gigi & Dar at the Arcola and Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia at the Almeida.
Democracy
Back on the Main Stage, Democracy runs from 26 March to 1 May 2027. Michael Frayn's Tony-nominated play is set in West Germany in 1969, as Chancellor Willy Brandt begins reaching out to East Germany and Russia. Beside him at every turn is his loyal personal assistant, Günter Guillaume, who is also spying on him for the East German intelligence service.
This is the play's first major London revival. Jeremy Sams, who makes his Hampstead debut, has a long history with Frayn's work: he directed the National Theatre's Noises Off, which went on to the West End and Broadway, and later West End productions of Benefactors and Donkeys' Years.
It Never Rains in Kennebunkport
Isabella Waldron, a recent graduate of the theatre's INSPIRE programme, has her world premiere Downstairs from 9 April to 15 May 2027. In It Never Rains in Kennebunkport, Devon teenager Sadie decides that her absent father must be former US President George W. Bush. To catch his eye, she sets out to raise £20,000 for a September 11th memorial garden in South Devon. Hampstead's associate director Alice Hamilton directs.
Driftweed
The season closes Downstairs with Driftweed, the new play from Chloë Lawrence-Taylor, from 4 June to 10 July 2027. She returns to Hampstead after her 2025 sell-out Personal Values. The play is set in a British seaside town as the sea creeps closer: Sal will not leave her cliff-edge bungalow despite eviction orders, and the question is whether the demolition crew or the water gets there first. Júlia Levai makes her Hampstead directing debut.
All five plays are at Hampstead Theatre. Main Stage evening performances begin at 7.30pm, with 2.30pm matinees on Thursdays and Saturdays. Downstairs, curtain up is 7.45pm, with matinees at 2.45pm on the same days. General booking opens on Thursday 19 November 2026 at 10.30am.
