A new push into the growing market for closed-circuit screenings of stage productions in movie theaters and a new play reuniting “The History Boys” scribe Alan Bennett and director Nicholas Hytner highlight the National Theater’s 2009 season.
Hytner, who is the National Theater’s artistic director, said Wednesday that the screenings, dubbed “NT Live,” are regarded by the National as an experiment. Four of its 2009 productions will be filmed in front of an audience who will pay a reduced price for those shows.
The productions will be shot using multiple cameras in high definition and broadcast live via satellite to a network of independent cinemas throughout the U.K. They also will be distribbed to theaters in the U.S. and Canada. The move, designed to expose the National Theater’s work to a wider aud, follows the lead of the Metropolitan Opera’s high-def broadcasts, which have proved highly successful in the U.K. Such closed-circuit screenings have become a growing area of interest for a number of U.S. exhibs as they represent a potentially lucrative source of additional revenue.
Hytner’s own production of Racine’s classical tragedy “Phedre,” starring Helen Mirren and Dominic Cooper, will be the first to be screened June 25. The other three titles have yet to be confirmed.
Hytner is no stranger to this sort of production. Several of his opera productions have been filmed, and his 1998 Lincoln Center production of “Twelfth Night” was broadcast in a similar closed-circuit screening.
With sponsorship over the last six months equaling its highest level ever, Hytner is confident that further funds can be found for the screenings initiative. He estimates a cost of £50,000 (about $75,000) per production, which may make 50% of the cost back.
Details of Bennett’s play, as yet untitled, were unavailable. However, Hytner, who will direct the play in the National’s Lyttelton Theater in November, announced that two of its characters are the poet W.H. Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten, both of whom are featured late in their lives. Casting has yet to be announced.
Other plays announced include Matt Charman’s “The Observer,” to be helmed by former National Theater a.d. Richard Eyre for a May opening. Anna Chancellor, James Fleet and Chuk Iwuji will lead the cast.
Hanif Kureishi has adapted his 1995 novel about radical identity politics, “The Black Album,” for a production to be helmed by Jatinder Verma in July, and in October, Katie Mitchell will direct Austrian playwright Ferdinand Bruckner’s 1929 play “The Pains of Youth.”
Michael Grandage’s National Theater debut, helming Georg Buchner’s “Danton’s Death,” is now skedded for 2010. Grandage was forced to postpone since taking over as director of “Hamlet,” starring Jude Law, in the Donmar’s West End season, after original helmer Kenneth Branagh withdrew to helm upcoming pic “Thor.”
Contact David Benedict at
benedictdavid@mac.com