SIZE OF COMPANY
Varies

SCALE OF VENUE
Medium to large

PERMANENT STAFF
Director
Nicholas Hytner
Executive Director
Nick Starr
Associate Producer
Pádraig Cusack

ARTISTIC POLICY
The National Theatre is central to the creative life of the country. In its three theatres on the South Bank in London, it presents an eclectic mix of new plays and classics. The National Theatre re-energises the great traditions of the British stage, and expands the horizons of audiences and artists alike. It aspires to reflect the diversity of UK culture in its repertoire. And through touring, the National shares its work with audiences in the UK and around the world.

REVIEW EXTRACTS
An extraordinary show: spellbinding, sophisticated and moving.
The Sunday Times (Waves)
Waves offers audiences that rarest of experiences: the chance to see a production that is genuinely doing something that has never been done before.
The Irish Times (Waves)
It will break your heart…There is no doubt that Redgrave is a great artist. So is Ms. Didion.
The New York Times (The Year of Magical Thinking)

CURRENT PRODUCTIONS
Waves
A work devised by Katie Mitchell and the Company from the text of Virginia Woolf's novel, The Waves. A fragmented and dreamlike tale of friendship, loss, identity and love in a multi-media production based on Virginia Woolf's ground-breaking experiment in literary form. (2 hours 20 minutes with one interval, 24 on the road)
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
What happens when your universe becomes unmoored? Joan Didion's award-winning autobiographical examination of grief, arrives at the National Theatre prior to an international tour. Academy Award and Tony winner Vanessa Redgrave will portray the writer in Didion's stage adaptation of her exhilarating memoir, directed by playwright David Hare. Redgrave re-lives the unimaginable night when, as Didion's only child lay in a coma, her husband of 40 years, writer John Gregory Dunne, died of a massive coronary as they sat down to dinner in their New York apartment. (90 minutes, no interval, 14 on the road)
The Pitmen Painters by Lee Hall.
In 1934, a group of Ashington miners hired a professor to teach an art appreciation evening class. Rapidly abandoning theory in favour of practice, the pitmen began to paint. Within a few years the most avant-garde artists became their friends and their work was acquired by prestigious collections; but every day they worked, as before, down the mine. (2 hours, 45 minutes, one interval, 24 on the road, includes nudity)

RECENT INTERNATIONAL WORK
2008 Holland, Luxembourg, Ireland, USA: Waves
2008 Austria, Ireland: The Year of Magical Thinking
2008 Hong Kong: Chatroom/Citizenship
2007/08 France, Spain, Holland, Greece, Ireland, USA: Happy Days
2006 Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, USA: The History Boys

TOURING AVAILABILITY
Waves – summer and early autumn 2009
The Year of Magical Thinking – autumn 2009
The Pitmen Painters – spring 2010