The National Theatre has programmed its full year for 2027 with thirteen productions, eight of them world premieres, a return to repertory playing in the Lyttelton and a revival of West Side Story in the Olivier. Public booking for the first three productions opens on Thursday 24 September.
The National Theatre has set out its whole year for 2027, and the most consequential decision in it is not a title but a method: the company returns to repertory playing, with one ensemble alternating two productions in the Lyttelton. Thirteen productions were announced on Wednesday 9 September, eight of them world premieres, and three go on sale this month.
Samira opens the year in the Dorfman, running from Thursday 4 February to Saturday 13 March 2027. Carmen Nasr’s new play begins in Damascus in 2011, where a woman at the centre of the protests posts an unfiltered account of them while a group of London academics follow her from a safe distance, until she stops posting. Emily Burns, who directed Dear Octopus at the National, directs a company including May Calamawy, Joshua McGuire and Sirine Saba.
Suddenly Last Summer follows in the Olivier from Friday 19 February to Saturday 24 April 2027. Michael Grandage returns to the National for the first time in more than fifteen years to direct Emma Corrin and Harriet Walter in Tennessee Williams’s one-act, a play revived far less often than A Streetcar Named Desire or The Glass Menagerie.
Mr Loverman takes the Lyttelton from Thursday 25 February to Saturday 24 April 2027. Natasha Gordon, whose Nine Night began at the National before transferring to the West End, has adapted Bernardine Evaristo’s novel about a Hackney man who has kept a sixty-year relationship with his best friend to himself. Danny Sapani plays Barrington and Gary Beadle plays Morris, directed by Paulette Randall MBE.
The revival announced for the Olivier goes on sale later in the year. West Side Story arrives from November 2027, with booking opening in November this year, and reunites Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell after their Death of a Salesman in the West End and on Broadway. Jerome Robbins’s original choreography is reproduced and adapted by Julio Monge, who was artistic collaborator and consultant on the 2021 film.
Spring brings three more. Glorious Madness is a new British musical in the Dorfman built on the songs of Joan Armatrading, with a book by Iman Qureshi and direction by Phyllida Lloyd, who staged Mamma Mia! and Tina - The Tina Turner Musical; it is a co-production with KPPL Productions. Plenty returns to the Lyttelton, the auditorium where David Hare’s play was first staged in 1978, directed by Richard Eyre and programmed ahead of Hare’s eightieth birthday, with Emilia Clarke making her National Theatre debut. Major follows in the Olivier in spring or summer, reuniting James Graham and Jeremy Herrin, who made This House at the National, on a world premiere about the point at which John Major took over from Margaret Thatcher.
The summer and autumn are where the season changes gear. Ghostlight, conceived by Felix Barrett and curated by Lucy Kirkwood, is a new immersive production made with Punchdrunk to mark fifty years of the National’s South Bank home, directed by Barrett.
Alongside it the repertory company arrives in the Lyttelton. Death of a Salesman, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, and A Whistle in the Dark, Tom Murphy’s 1961 play directed by Caitríona McLaughlin, play in rep with a single company led by Paul Mescal. Peter Corboy, Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty, Ryan Donaldson, Ciarán Hinds, Aisling Loftus and Julian Moore-Cook join him, and the Death of a Salesman cast also includes Monica Dolan and Tracy Letts, the Pulitzer-winning author of August: Osage County, who makes his UK stage acting debut. A Whistle in the Dark is a co-production with the Abbey Theatre and plays there from 13-30 October 2027 as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
The Great Indaba takes the Olivier in autumn. Moira Buffini’s new play dramatises the meeting in South Africa that moved the 1998 Good Friday Agreement forward, and is directed by Indhu Rubasingham in a co-production with MGC.
Two winter openings close the year. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead returns to the Lyttelton sixty years after the National made Tom Stoppard’s name with it, directed by Robert Hastie, the National’s Deputy Artistic Director, with Mawaan Rizwan as Rosencrantz and George Fouracres as Guildenstern. In the Dorfman, The Adeyemis - A Family Saga is a new political family drama by Oladipo Agboluaje following a wealthy clan through a turbulent period in Nigeria’s recent history, marking Lucian Msamati’s National Theatre directing debut and the National Theatre debut of Uzo Aduba.
Indhu Rubasingham, Director and Co-Chief Executive of the National Theatre, said: “Some of these stories are unfamiliar, some are rediscovered, and others are boldly reimagined for the times we are living in. From new musicals and immersive theatre, to filmed productions translated into local languages and plays interwoven in repertory, each of these shows is shaped by extraordinary artists and united by themes of resilience and hope.”
Public booking for Samira, Suddenly Last Summer and Mr Loverman opens on Thursday 24 September 2026, with members booking from Thursday 17 September. The rest of the season goes on sale across the year, West Side Story from November.
