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It is the 1990s and Russia is reaping the fruits of 1980s perestroika and glasnost, or rather, the Russian nouveaux riches or oligarchs are making money and gaining power.  

theatrevibe

‘It had me on the edge of my seat, and a West End transfer is a must’

Mail on Sunday

‘This is a cracking, exciting piece of theatre that’s become, sadly, very timely’

Evening Standard

‘Peter Morgan’s absorbing, acerbic new play’

Variety

Patriots is international award-winning writer Peter Morgan’s (Frost/Nixon) first new play since The Audience. He is best known for writing the multi award-winning Netflix hit, The Crown.

Patriots is the Almeida’s fastest selling new play and transfers to the Noël Coward Theatre for a limited twelve-week run from 26 May to 19 August 2023, with Opening Night on 6 June 2023. Directed by the Almeida’s Artistic Director, Rupert Goold (Ink, Enron), Patriots is a brilliant and startlingly timely story of ambition, loyalty and betrayal in a brave new world.

BAFTA-winning actor Tom Hollander (The Night Manager; Travesties) reprises his starring role as Boris Berezovsky, the ‘kingmaker’ behind Vladimir Putin, with Will Keen (His Dark Materials) also returning to play Putin and Luke Thallon (Albion) as Abramovich. Further casting will be announced in due course.

“If the politicians cannot save Russia, then we businessmen must. We have not just the responsibility but the duty to become Russian heroes”

1991. The Fall of the Soviet Union.

With the dawning of a new Russia, there are winners and losers, and today’s patriot can fast become tomorrow’s traitor.

As a new generation of oligarchs fights to seize control, PATRIOTS follows billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky from the president’s inner circle

to public enemy number one.

The full creative team for Patriots is Director: Rupert Goold, Set Designer: Miriam Buether, Co-Costume Designers: Deborah Andrews and Miriam Buether, Lighting Designer: Jack Knowles, Movement Director Polly Bennett, Sound Designer and Composer: Adam Cork, and Casting Director: Robert Sterne.

Peter Morgan (Writer) is an international award-winning writer for stage, screen and film. As well as receiving Oscar and BAFTA Award nominations for his screenplay for Stephen Frears’ The Queen starring Helen Mirren, Morgan won a host of international awards including, Golden Globe, British Independent Film and Evening Standard British Film Awards.

The award-winning and Tony-nominated play Frost/Nixon received critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic before being adapted into a multi–Academy Award-nominated film of the same name. The film garnered five Oscar Award nominations, including Best Screenplay.

Morgan’s many other film credits include the award-winning The Last King of Scotland, The Damned United and Rush. His extensive television credits include The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries, the critically acclaimed The Deal – the first part of Morgan’s Tony Blair Trilogy (BAFTA Award for Best Drama) – The Special Relationship and Longford. 

In 2013, Peter wrote the award-winning West End play, The Audience, starring Helen Mirren. He is the creator and showrunner of The Crown, which debuted on Netflix in 2016. The series has won numerous awards, including two Golden Globes for Best Television Series – Drama and many Emmy Awards including Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. The sixth and final season is scheduled to air in 2023. 

Rupert Goold (Director) is Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre where he has previously directed Patriots, Spring Awakening, The Hunt, Shipwreck, Albion (broadcast on BBC Four), Ink (also West End and Broadway), Richard III (broadcast live to cinemas around the world), Medea, The Merchant of Venice, King Charles III (West End, Broadway, UK and international tour) and American Psycho (also Broadway). He was Artistic Director of Headlong from 2005 until 2013 where his work included The Effect, ENRON, Earthquakes in London and Decade. Other theatre credits include The 47^th (The Old Vic); Made in Dagenham (West End); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Almeida); Macbeth (Chichester Festival Theatre, West End and Broadway) and No Man’s Land (The Gate, Dublin and West End). He has twice been the recipient of the Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Best Director. He was Associate Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2009 to 2012 and was Artistic Director of Northampton Theatres from 2002 to 2005. His feature film work includes Judy and True Story, and his other work on film includes the BAFTA nominated Richard II, part of The Hollow Crown, Macbeth for the BBC and Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III for BBC Two. He was awarded a CBE for services to drama in 2017.

Tom Hollander’s (Boris Berezovsky) theatre work includes Travesties (Menier Chocolate Factory, West End – nominated for Olivier Award – and Broadway – nominated for Tony Award for Best Actor); A Flea in Her Ear (Old Vic); Landscape with Weapon (National Theatre); The Hotel in Amsterdam, (Donmar Warehouse); Mojo (Royal Court) and As You Like It (Cheek by Jowl). He has worked at the Almeida Theatre extensively in productions including The Government Inspector; Tartuffe; King Lear and The Judas Kiss. His recent television credits include The White Lotus; The Ipcress File; Us; Taboo; Doctor Thorne; The Night Manager; Rev; Any Human Heart. His film work includes The King’s Man; Bohemian Rhapsody; Mission: Impossible (Rogue Nation); About Time; In the Loop; Pirates of the Caribbean (II and III); Gosford Park.

Will Keen’s (Vladimir Putin) theatre credits include The Stepmother (Chichester Festival Theatre); Quartermaine’s Terms (West End); Hysteria (Theatre Royal Bath); Huis Clos (Donmar Warehouse); Macbeth and The Changeling (Cheek by Jowl).  He too has worked regularly with the Almeida having previously appeared in Ghosts; Waste; Tom and Viv and Five Gold Rings. His television work includes Ridley Road; The Pursuit of Love; Temple; His Dark Materials; The Crown and Wolf Hall. His film work includes Operation Mincemeat; The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

Luke Thallon’s (Roman Abramovich) theatre credits include Albion (nominated for the Evening Standard Emerging Talent Award) and Nine Lessons and Carols (Almeida Theatre); Camp Siegfried (The Old Vic); After Life (National Theatre); Leopoldstadt (West End); Present Laughter (The Old Vic); Family Voices and The Room as part of the Harold Pinter season (West End); Cock(Chichester Festival Theatre) and The Inheritance (Young Vic). His work for film includes The Favourite.

SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS

SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS (SFP) is an international production company responsible for some of the most successful theatre productions in London and New York.

SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS has developed, initiated and been lead producer of over 180 new productions and together the company has been responsible for winning 58 Olivier Awards, 34 Tonys and 3 BAFTAs. 

In 2019, Sonia Friedman OBE was awarded ‘Producer of the Year’ at the Stage Awards for a record-breaking fourth time. In 2018, Friedman was also featured in TIME 100, a list of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2017, she took the number one spot in ‘The Stage 100’, becoming the first number one in the history of the compilation not to own or operate West End theatres and the first solo woman for almost 20 years.

Current productions include: The Book of Mormon, London and UK & Europe tour; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, London, New York, Melbourne, San Francisco, Hamburg, Toronto and Tokyo; Mean Girls, US tour; To Kill a Mockingbird, London; Funny Girl, New York and Dreamgirls, UK tour.

Forthcoming productions include: Eureka Day, London; Merrily We Roll Along, New York; The Doctor, London and UK tour; The Piano Lesson, New York; Leopoldstadt, New York and The Shark is Broken, Toronto.

Previous theatre productions include: Jerusalem; Oklahoma!; The 47^th; The Human Voice, The Shark is Broken, Leopoldstadt, Anna X, Walden and J’Ouvert as part of the Re:Emerge season; The Comeback; Uncle Vanya; Mean Girls; Fiddler on the Roof; Rosmersholm; The Ferryman; The Inheritance; Summer and Smoke; Dreamgirls; The Jungle; All About Eve; Consent; The Birthday Party; Ink; Hamlet starring Andrew Scott; Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Travesties; The Glass Menagerie; Nice Fish; A Christmas Carol; The Haunting of Hill House; Funny Girl; Farinelli and the King; Orestia; Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch; 1984; Sunny Afternoon; Bend It Like Beckham; The Nether; The River; Electra; King Charles III; Shakespeare in Love; Ghosts; Mojo; Chimerica; Merrily We Roll Along; Old Times; Twelfth Night and Richard III; A Chorus of Disapproval; The Sunshine Boys; Hay Fever; Absent Friends; Top Girls; Betrayal; Much Ado About Nothing; Clybourne Park; The Children’s Hour; A Flea In Her Ear; La Bête; All My Sons; Private Lives; Jerusalem; A Little Night Music; Legally Blonde; Othello; Arcadia; The Mountaintop; The Norman Conquests; A View From the Bridge; Dancing at Lughnasa; Maria Friedman Re-Arranged; La Cage aux Folles; No Man’s Land; The Seagull; Under the Blue Sky; That Face; Dealer’s Choice; Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin; In Celebration; Boeing-Boeing; The Dumb Waiter; Rock ‘n’ Roll; Love Song; Faith Healer; Bent; Eh Joe; Donkeys’ Years; Otherwise Engaged; In Celebration; Shoot the Crow; As You Like It; The Home Place; Whose Life Is It Anyway?; By the Bog of Cats; The Woman in White; Guantanamo: ‘Honour Bound to Defend Freedom’; Endgame; Jumpers; See You Next Tuesday; Hitchcock Blonde; Absolutely! {Perhaps}; Sexual Perversity in Chicago; Ragtime; Macbeth; What the Night is For; Afterplay; Up for Grabs; A Day in the Death of Joe Egg; Noises Off; On an Average Day; A Servant to Two Masters; Port Authority; Spoonface Steinberg and Speed-The-Plow.

TV productions include: Wolf Hall; Uncle Vanya; J’Ouvert (BBC); Walden and Anna X (Sky Arts) (Co-Producer); The Dresser; King Lear (Exec Producer); Dennis Kelly’s Together (BBC) (Producer). For cinema; Uncle Vanya and Walden.  SFP’s productions of Hamlet; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; All About Eve and Leopoldstadt have been filmed for cinema release by NT Live; with All About Eve, Hamlet and Leopoldstadt featuring on NT at Home and Hamlet on Amazon’s Great British Theatre series.

ALMEIDA THEATRE

The Almeida Theatre makes brave new work that asks big questions: of plays, of theatre and of the world around us. It brings together the most exciting artists to take risks; to provoke, inspire and surprise its audiences; to interrogate the present, dig up the past and imagine the future. Whether new work or reinvigorated classic, whether at the Almeida, on the road or online, the Almeida makes live art to excite, enliven and entertain.

Since 2013; the Almeida has been led by Artistic Director Rupert Goold. During his tenure, notable productions have included American Psycho: a new musical thriller (transferred to Broadway); Ghosts (transferred to the West End and won three Olivier Awards);  Chimerica  (transferred to the West End and won five Olivier Awards); 1984 (transferred to West End; Broadway and Australia); King Charles III (transferred to the West End; won the Olivier Award for Best New Play; transferred to Broadway; toured the UK and Sydney; and was adapted for BBC television) and Oresteia (transferred to the West End and New York; winner of the Olivier Award for Best Director). In recent years, there have been West End transfers for Ink directed by Goold (also Broadway); Associate Director Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Summer and Smoke (winner of Best Play Revival and Best Actress at the 2019 Olivier Awards) and Robert Icke’s productions of Hamlet (also screened on the BBC and transferred to New York), Mary Stuart and The Doctor (transferring to the Duke of York’s Theatre this autumn). 

LISTINGS

PATRIOTS

WRITTEN BY PETER MORGAN

DIRECTED BY RUPERT GOOLD

NOËL COWARD THEATRE FROM 26 MAY TO 19 AUGUST 2023

PRODUCED BY SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS AND THE ALMEIDA THEATRE

Opening Night:                       Tuesday 6 June at 7pm

Performance schedule:          Monday to Saturday at 7.30pm,

                                                Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm*

*No matinee on Saturday 27 May

* w/c 5 June; no Wednesday matinee and instead a Thursday matinee on 8 June

Running Time: Approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes, including an interval

Age Recommendation: This production includes reference to suicide, antisemitic language, the smoking of real cigarettes and strobe lights. Recommended for ages 14+.

Address: Noël Coward Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4AU

Box Office: 0344 482 5151

Website: www.patriotstheplay.com

Facebook: patriotstheplay     

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Twitter: patriotstheplay