Stage Kiss description
The brilliant romcom Stage Kiss sets the stage alight with an unusual romance.
Stage Kiss takes us to 1930s New York, where Ada is dying. Her estranged lover is on the way to her bedside from Europe, hoping for one last embrace. When they're reunited, they start to believe their passion will conquer every obstacle. But in real life the year is 2011, the place is New Haven, and they're in rehearsals for an old melodrama called The Last Kiss. In a curious twist in the plot, art imitates life. As it turns out the two lead actors also have a dramatic romantic history. Is an affair on the cards as opening night comes closer?
In 2011 the play premiered at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. By 2014 it had hit New York, debuting at the city's Playwrights Horizons, where writer Sarah Ruhl's unique voice and style made a splash. Now it's finally in the UK for its 2026 London premiere, a show that has already attracted plenty of critical acclaim in the USA.
Themes of love, art, and the complex ins and outs of the human heart blend humour with seriousness to deliver something unique. The writer is the twice-Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl (The Clean House, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, In the Next Room/The Vibrator Play). Blanche McIntyre (Letters from Max, The Assembled Parties, Apex Predator, The Invention of Love) directs in her second collaboration with Ruhl, and the Casting Director is Juliet Horsley.
Buy Stage Kiss tickets to experience a play whose mix of serious themes and humour have already proved a smash hit with audiences and critics alike.
Playing at Hampstead Theatre
Age restrictions
Ages 14+.