North London’s Almeida Theatre has announced that it will be reopening in December with a brand new season of shows.

Rebecca Frecknall and Chris Bush will join the show’s company to present Nine Lessons and Carols, which will feature six actors and musicians including Naan Agyei-Ampadu, Katie Brayben, Maimuna Memon, Toheeb Jimoh and Luke Thallon. The show wil run from 2 December 2020 - 9 January 2021, with the venue’s capacity reduced to 120.  

The venue’s youth company will then perform The Maladies in a new production directed by Diyan Zora, running from 18 – 22 January.

Following this, Lolita Chakrabarti’s new play Hymn will take to the stage, featuring Red Velvet star Adrian Lester alongside Danny Sapani, with direction by Blanche McIntyre. The new play runs from 29 January to 27 February.

The Almeida Theatre’s Artistic Director, Rupert Goold, said: “Having gratefully received a grant from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund, we are very pleased to be offering a season of work playing through Christmas and into 2021. The theatre has been reconfigured for social distancing, with a reduced capacity of 120 – about a third of our usual size.

“Acknowledging the context and timing of our re-opening, we decided that it was imperative to produce new work this winter: to provide employment to staff and freelancers, to welcome our audiences, supported and local community back into the building, and to reunite our young artist’s group. Considerable work has gone into ensuring that the theatre is safe for audiences and more information on those measures can be found on our website. For those audiences who can’t make it to the Almeida, we will also be offering digital screenings for people to watch at home.”

For more information, please click here.