The Young Vic Theatre has announced that Francesca Moody Productions will present Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree, in association with the Young Vic, from 6 - 17 May in the groundbreaking play’s 20th anniversary year.

Written, performed and co-directed by award-winning theatre maker, writer, actor and director Tim Crouch, this bold, absurdly comic, and profoundly moving story of loss, suggestion, and the power of the mind pioneered the idea of the theatrical ‘cold-read’ and has significantly influenced other artists that have gone on to explore this form. In every performance, a different guest artist steps into the unknown, having never seen, read or rehearsed the play before who will only perform it once during the run.

An Oak Tree is directed by Tim Crouch, Karl James and Andy Smith, and features music by Peter Gill.

When I say sleep, you’re free again.

A father loses his daughter in a car accident. The driver of the car that killed her is a stage hypnotist. The two men meet for the first time when the father volunteers for the hypnotist’s act. What follows is a live theatrical experience like no other.

Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù (Gangs of London, Slow Horses), Michelle Terry (Tribes, The Cafe), Luke Thompson (Bridgerton, A Little Life), Russell Tovey (Being Human, American Horror Story: NYC) and Indira Varma (Game of Thrones, Present Laughter) are the first to be announced of 15 different guest artists who will each take to the Young Vic stage on a different date, to perform alongside Tim who returns to star in the production in its 20th anniversary year. Each guest artist will only be revealed to audiences live on the night as they join Tim on stage. The remaining artists are to be announced in the coming weeks.

Tim Crouch said: “Exactly twenty years ago a laboratory was created in a small room above a pub in South London where an experiment took place. Actors were invited to try out a new play I’d written called An Oak Tree - like trying out a new drug formulation. Each time a different actor who knew nothing about the play they were going to be in - a blind test each time. For some of the actors the drug was euphoric. For some it was heartbreaking. For some it was riotous. For some it was hard work. But the experiment was never less than enthralling. Twenty years later and that experiment is still ongoing with 374 blind tests to date. 374 actors who have done the play with me. And the laboratory has moved on from London to New York to LA to Russia to South America to Australia to Asia. Each time an actor who doesn’t know the play. Each time the same conditions. Each time a different result.

“Twenty years since that room above a pub and the laboratory is the Young Vic, a theatre that has consistently proved its devotion to the new; a theatre that has developed an audience that is open and enquiring and engaged. I'm thrilled to see what happens to the experiment there. I’m thrilled to meet actors in the moment of performance. Actors I’ve never met in a play they’ve never met. Meeting an audience for one time only.”

Tickets go on sale to the public for An Oak Tree from 12pm on 27 January here.