Shakespeare’s Globe has announced the first four productions set to open as part of its third indoor season at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
The quartet of shows, which will run in the candle-lit venue from October to November, will include a new collaboration between the Globe and the Royal Opera, Simon Armitage’s Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead and revivals of Thomas Tallis and Omeros.
Luigi Rossi’s Orpheus will kick off the season from 23 October to 15 November. Reuniting the atmospheric venue with the Royal Opera following their Olivier Award nominated work on L’Ormindo, the production will see British soprano Mary Bevan take on the title role, with Christian Curnyn returning to conduct the orchestra of the Early Opera Company.
Another reunion comes in the form of Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead. Poet and playwright Armitage and director Nick Bagnall, who worked together on the Lily Cole-led The Last Days Of Troy at the Globe last summer, will present the modern retelling of Homer’s epic from 3 to 14 November.
A co-production with Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and English Touring Theatre, it follows a government minister on a diplomatic mission to Istanbul who becomes Europe’s most wanted man after a bar brawl.
Following its run at the venue last year, Jessica Swale’s Thomas Tallis, an exploration of the life and work of the English composer, will return from 22 October to 8 November. Directed by Adele Thomas, it follows Tallis through the religious and political shifts of four Tudor monarchies.
Completing the line-up of four shows, Derek Walcott’s haunting adaptation of his Nobel Prize-winning poem Omeros returns to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse from 26 to 31 October.
The Bill Buckhurst-directed production, which played four performances at the venue in 2014, spans time and continents to tell the story of Achilles, Hector and Helen, transporting them to a St Lucian village where themes of colonialism, ritual and untamed nature underscore their domestic dramas.
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse’s forthcoming autumn offerings will follow the Globe’s outdoor Justice And Mercy season, which includes productions of As You Like It, Measure For Measure and The Merchant Of Venice.