Wilton, West Join Anderson, Branagh, Jacobi in Donmar Warehouse Season

The Donmar Warehouse has announced additional casting details for its 2008-2009 season.

The season will begin with Jamie Lloyd’s reworked production of Pam Gems’ bio-play Piaf, August 7-September 20, with Elena Roger starring as singer Edith Piaf.

Up next, Anna Chancellor, Tom Burke, and Owen Teale will star in Alan Rickman’s production of August Strindberg’s 1890 comic tale of obsession Creditors, in a new translation by David Grieg, September 25-November 15. It will be followed by the world premiere of Be Near Me, January 22-March 14, adapted by and starring Tony Award winner Ian McDiarmid, and directed by John Tiffany.

The Donmar will also stage a festival of the works of TS Eliot, including his 1939 play The Family Reunion (November 20-January 17), starring Penelope Wilton and Samuel West, readings of The Wasteland, The Cocktail Party, and Murder in the Cathedral, and Eliot’s Four Quartets, starring Tony Award winner Stephen Dillane and directed by Katie Mitchell.

In the spring, Gillian Anderson will star in a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, written by Zinnie Harris and directed by Kfir Yefet.

In addition, the Donmar will take a year-long West End residency at Wyndham’s Theatre during the 2008-2009 season, which launches with Michael Grandage’s new production of Anton Chekhov’s first play, Ivanov, in a new version by Tom Stoppard, September 12-November 29, with Kenneth Branagh in the title role. It will be followed by Grandage’s production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, December 5-March 7, with Sir Derek Jacobi as Malvolio. Grandage will also direct the third piece in the West End season, Yukio Mishima’s 1965 Japanese play Madame de Sade, starring Dame Judi Dench, running March 13-May 23. The Wyndham’s season will culminate with Branagh taking on directing duties for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with Jude Law in the title role, May 29-August 22.

For more information, visit www.whatsonstage.com.