English Touring Theatre Unveils 2026-27 Season Featuring World Premieres and UK Tour

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Artistic director Richard Twyman leads the lineup, including world premiere APPLICATION 39 by Ahmed Masoud.

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English Touring Theatre has announced their new season comprising five plays featuring world premieres of new writing, adaptations, and a major revival. Further productions in the season are to be announced at a later date.

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Richard Twyman , Artistic Director and joint CEO and Sophie Scull, Executive Producer and joint CEO today said, “We’re very proud to announce our season of work from Autumn ’26 until Spring ’27. This is a season of ambitious new work, classic titles re-imagined and bold adaptations. In response to the twin crises in British theatre: significant declines in new writing and a wide scale reduction in touring drama; this season sees ETT reassert its commitment to telling urgent stories that resonate nationally and are accessible to audiences in their local theatre.

“Since the beginning of 2026 to the end of this season ETT will have produced nine shows, eight of which will be new plays or adaptations. We would like to thank the incredible artists and production teams that will realise this work and our partners and tour venues including Bristol Old Vic, Factory International, Graeae, Leeds Playhouse, MMXX, New Wolsey, Nottingham Playhouse , Northern Stage, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh , Sheffield Theatres, Theatre De La Ville Luxembourg, Theatre Royal Stratford East and Yvonne Arnaud .”

The autumn season opens with Application 39, written by Palestinian writer Ahmed Masoud and directed by Cressida Brown, a satirical and resonant take on life in Gaza featuring lived testimony. The production will open in September 2026 at Bristol Old Vic, before travelling to Theatre Royal Stratford East, and then embarking on a UK tour.

This is followed by Lanny, in association with Bristol Old Vic, where the production will run. Directed by their Artistic Director NANCY MEDINA , this world premiere is a stage adaptation of Max Porter’s much loved novel adapted for the stage by West Country playwright Bea Roberts.

Chelsea Walker continues her association with ETT having previously directed A Streetcar Named Desire and Cougar, returning to direct a new production of Romeo and Juliet in a co-production with Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Leeds Playhouse, and Nottingham Playhouse . The production opens in Edinburgh early next year, before embarking on a tour to Leeds Playhouse, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre , and concluding its run on 8 May 2027 at Nottingham Playhouse .

Chelsea Walker , Director of Romeo and Juliet, commented, “I am thrilled to join forces with ETT, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh , Leeds Playhouse and Nottingham Playhouse to direct Romeo and Juliet. It’s a play I’ve always wanted to direct, and it feels more urgent and moving now than ever before, in a world where decisions are made in the blink of an eye and people are forced to grow up younger and younger. I can’t wait to bring our visceral, contemporary take to audiences across the UK.”

ETT’s Artistic Director Richard Twyman will then direct the world premiere of Pericles, a new play by Sami Ibrahim , inspired by Shakespeare’s play. Set in modern day Lebanon, Turkey, Greece and Libya, Ibrahim’s version brings Shakespeare’s ancient story of displacement into urgent contact with the present, where today’s defining crisis is found hiding inside his most compassionate play. Featuring an international cast, Pericles is co-produced with long term collaborators Bristol Old Vic and Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, and made in association with MMXX.

Sami Ibrahim , writer of Pericles, today said, “I’m so excited to bring Pericles to the stage with ETT and particularly with Richard as director. We’ve been wrestling with the text for years and it’s been a thrilling challenge to mix the original Shakespeare with modern dialogue and a modern story, tracking the journeys of people fleeing across continents. It’s a play about migration and the way families are both torn apart and reunited over decades. I’m aware of how personal a piece it is for both me and Richard so to work on the play together is a privilege and I know it’s in very safe hands. Of course, Pericles also features colossal shipwrecks and wrong turns so it’s only fitting that the piece should travel across countries to be performed. I can’t wait to share it with audiences.”

Finally, the world premiere production of Lettie Precious’ 12 Letters to My Name – in a co-production with Sheffield Theatres and Graeae - will be staged in Sheffield. Originally developed through ETT’s Nationwide Voices programme, supported by the John Ellerman Foundation,

Continuing their pledge in supporting new work, ETT also announces The New Classics. This partnership between Guildhall and English Touring Theatre seeks to develop urgent contemporary adaptations of classic plays and novels. These plays seek to address the gap identified by drama school and industry sectors for diverse adaptations that bring the canon into the present moment. There will be a series of commissions over the coming years to be performed first by Guildhall students before embarking on professional tours. In the first cohort, Hannah Khalil and Dipo Baruwa-Etti are bringing these enduring narratives up to date, creating deeply resonant stories for a new generation of theatremakers and audiences alike.

By Ahmed Masoud Director: Cressida Brown

Bristol Old Vic 23 - 26 September 2026

Factory International, Manchester 9 - 10 October 2026

Theatre Royal Stratford East 13 - 14 October 2026

A sharply satirical, future‑facing drama by Palestinian writer Ahmed Masoud, Application 39 imagines a Gaza risen from ruin, unexpectedly awarded the right to host the 2048 Olympic Games, exactly 100 years after the Nakba. It is bold, irreverent, and rooted in lived testimony as well as speculative hope.

In Application 39, two young IT workers in the municipality of Gaza hack the bid process for the 2048 Olympics as a prank - and win. Their “victory” becomes a surreal yet pressing journey through occupation, bureaucracy, absurdity, and reconstruction. This stage version draws on real‑life testimonies, including from Gaza itself, to pose a radical question: what if Gaza were no longer rubble and siege - but a site of global gathering, resistance and renewal?

Ahmed Masoud is a Palestinian and British writer, theatre maker, and academic. His plays include The Shroud Maker, Camouflage, Passports, Mo Salah, Jinn and Other Complicated Things; and his novels, Vanished: The Mysterious Disappearance of Mustafa Ouda and Come What May. Masoud is the founder of the Al Zaytouna Dance Company and PalArt Collective.

Cressida Brown directs. Her theatre credits include The Political History of Smack and Crack, England & Son (UK tour), Cutting the Tightrope: The Divorce of Politics from Arts (Arcola Theatre), Amphibians (Bridewell Theatre), Twelfth Night (RSC and Guangzhou Dramatic Arts Centre), Icarus, Septimus Bean and His Amazing Machine (Unicorn Theatre), Food (Finborough Theatre), Screens (Theatre503), Speaking Freely, Hotel Du Vin, The Words are Coming Now (Theatre503). Brown also created a documentary film titled Ruby Francis’ Nubian Songs, in association with the Bush Theatre .

Based on the novel by Max Porter Adapted by Bea Roberts Director: NANCY MEDINA

16 October – 7 November

Not far from Bristol, there is a village. This village belongs to the people who live in it and to those who lived in it hundreds of years ago. It belongs to England’s mysterious past and its confounding present. It belongs to families dead for generations, and to those who have only recently moved here, such as the boy Lanny, and his mum and dad. But it also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, who has woken from his slumber in the woods. Dead Papa Toothwort, who is listening to them all.

By the author of Sunday Times Bestseller, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter’s spectral novel Lanny rocked the literary world in 2019. Described as “a joyously stirred cauldron of words” (The Guardian) that is “magically beguiling” (Financial Times), it intertwines reality and imagination to thrillingly eerie effect.

Adapted for the stage by award-winning West Country playwright Bea Roberts (And Then Come The Nightjars), and directed by NANCY MEDINA (The Beautiful Future Is Coming; A Good House; Choir Boy – Best Director, Black British Theatre Awards 2024), this dark and powerful story of folklore, fable and the nature of belonging is the flagship production of our 260th year.

Max Porter is an English writer. His first novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers won the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Europese Literatuurprijs and the BAMB Readers’ Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. His second novel, Lanny was longlisted for the Booker Prize award and shortlisted for the 2019 Waterstones Book of the Year.

Bea Roberts’ plays include The Whitby Rebels ( Stephen Joseph Theatre ), Those Who Are Left (Shortlisted for the George Devine Playwriting Award), Ivy Tiller: Vicar’s Daughter, Squirrel Killer (RSC), Infinity Pool: A Modern Retelling of Madame Bovary, The Borrowers (Tobacco Factory Theatre), And Then Come The Nightjars (Theatre503 - Winner of the International Theatre503 Playwriting Award, Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for playwriting and nominated for six Off West End Awards including ‘Most Promising Playwright’ – and tour), The Little Mermaid (Egg Theatre, Bath Theatre Royal), Loam (Royal Court and Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama), The C-Word Clubhouse (Sky Ars, The Old Vic, and RSC). For television, her work includes The Polite Revenge Society, and This Cult Ate My Mum; and for film, And Then Come The Nightjars, and Sir F. Mother F*cking Drake.

NANCY MEDINA is Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic. Her directing credits for Bristol Old Vic include The Beautiful Future is Coming (also Edinburgh Festival Fringe), A Good House (also Royal Court Theatre ), and Choir Boy. Her further directing credits include The Darkest Part of the Night (Kiln Theatre), Moreno (Theatre503), Trouble in Mind (National Theatre), The Half God Of Rainfall (Fuel, Birmingham Rep, and Kiln Theatre) The Laramie Project (Bristol Old Vic Theatre School), Two Trains Running (Royal & Derngate), Strange Fruit ( Bush Theatre ), Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama), When They Go Low (NT Connections / Sherman Theatre), Yellowman ( Young Vic Theatre), Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It (GB Theatre), Curried Goat And Fish Fingers (Bristol Old Vic), Dogtag (Theatre West), Strawberry & Chocolate, Dutchman (Tobacco Factory Theatres) and Persistence Of Memory (Rondo Theatre). She is a recipient of the following awards: 2024 Genesis Foundation Prize, 2020/2021 Peter Hall Bursary (National Theatre), 2018 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award (Royal & Derngate/English Touring Theatre), 2017 Genesis Future Director Award ( Young Vic ) and 2014 Emerging Director’s Prize (Tobacco Factory Theatres). She was a visiting director at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and was joint Artistic Director and founder of the Bristol School of Acting.

By William Shakespeare Director: Chelsea Walker

Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh 30 January - 27 February

Leeds Playhouse 1 - 20 March 2027

Yvonne Arnaud Theatre , Guildford 22 - 27 March 2027

Nottingham Playhouse 19 Apri

_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/LANNY-PERICLES-and-More-Set-For-English-Touring-Theatre-2026-27-Season-20260609)._