By Tennessee Williams
Directed By Rebecca Frecknall
Tickets £10 - £39.50
★★★★★ Sunday Times, Time Out, Telegraph, The Times, Financial Times, Metro, The Stage, The Observer, The Independent, Daily Express
'The girl who said 'no' — she doesn't exist anymore, she died last summer — suffocated in smoke from something on fire inside her.'
In the heat of summer – under the wings of an angel – Alma meets John.
Trapped between desire and fear in a life of obligation, her world turns upside down in the search for salvation.
Featuring an ensemble cast, Rebecca Frecknall directs Summer and Smoke, Tennessee Williams’ intoxicating classic about love, loneliness and self-destruction.
For Summer and Smoke in the West End (from Nov 2018) click here.
Previews Sat 24 Feb - Fri 2 Mar
Press Night Wed 7 Mar 7pm
Evenings 7.30pm
Wed matinees 2.30pm from 14 Mar
Sat matinees 2.30pm from 3 Mar
24 Feb - 2 Mar
£32, £28, £20, £10
2 Mar - 7 Apr
£39.50, £32, £20, £10
Talkback
Mon 26 Mar
Post-show discussion with members of the Summer and Smoke company. With live subtitles by Stagetext. Free to same-day ticket holders.
Supporters' Evening
Tue 20 Mar
Captioned performance
Mon 26 Mar 7.30pm
£5 Captioned tickets for those aged 25 and under will go on sale on Mon 5 Feb.
Audio Described performance
by VocalEyes
Sat 24 Mar 2.30pm
(Touch Tour 12.45pm)
£5 Audio Described tickets for those aged 25 and under will go on sale on Mon 5 Feb.
Islington First
Sat 24 Feb - Thurs 8 Mar
If you live or work in the Islington area you can book best available seats for £25 for the opening performances, subject to availability. Enter the promo code ISFIRST when booking. For applicable postcodes see here.
Concessions
Customers claiming Jobseekers Allowance and students can book second-price-band tickets* for £25 on Monday - Thursday evenings & Wednesday & Saturday matinees. For more information click here.
Over 65s
Customers who are 65 and over can book second-price-band tickets* for £25 on Monday - Thursday evenings & Wed & Sat matinees. For more information click here.
Under 30s
Customers aged 30 or under can book second-price-band tickets for £15 on Monday - Thursday evenings & Wednesday & Saturday matinees*.
*Subject to availability. Not available in the final week of performances.
Archie Kramer
Television includes: Doctors; Father Brown; The Crown.
This is Seb's professional stage debut.
Mrs Winemiller/Mrs Bassett
For the Almeida: Against; Chimerica.
Theatre includes: The Sewing Group; Now or Later; The Sweetest Swing in Baseball; Our Late Night; The Strip (Royal Court); Teddy Ferrara (Donmar Warehouse); A Lie of the Mind; Next Fall (Southwark Playhouse); Vieux Carré (Kings Head Theatre); The Children’s Hour (West End); Design for Living (Old Vic); Love the Sinner; Angels in America, Parts 1 & 2 (National Theatre); Re-Orientations; Disorientations (Border Crossings); Chains of Dew; Trifles (Orange Tree Theatre); The Girl in a Goldfish Bowl; Six Degrees of Separation (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); The Price (UK Tour); Habitat (Royal Exchange, Manchester); A Wedding Story (Sphinx).
Television includes: Patrick Melrose; Black Earth Rising; Genius; Doctors; Nixon’s the One; Upstairs, Downstairs; Law & Order UK; Cambridge Spies; Strike Force.
Film includes: The Current War; Leavey; Florence Foster Jenkins; The Danish Girl; Woman in Gold; The Special Relationship; Batman: The Dark Knight; The Road to Guantanamo; Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow; The Machinist.
Alma
Theatre includes: My Mum's A Twat (Royal Court); Speech and Debate (Trafalgar Studios); As You Like It; Treasure Island (National Theatre); The Merchant Of Venice (RSC); The Angry Brigade (Paines Plough); Blithe Spirit (Gielgud Theatre).
Television includes: Will; Guerrilla; Jamestown.
Film includes: Darkest Hour; God’s Own Country; Tulip Fever; The National Phobia Association’s Day Out.
Patsy won a Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 2014, and was nominated for an Emerging Talent Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards in 2015.
Patsy trained at RADA.
Papa Gonzales/Vernon
Theatre includes: 1984 (Creation Theatre); A Tale of Two Cities (Chung Ying Theatre); Government Inspector; Annie Get Your Gun (Young Vic); Backwards (Station House Opera); Gormenghast (David Glass Ensemble); One Snowy Night (Slot Machine); Henry V (Southwark Playhouse); Half-Life (National Theatre of Scotland); Get Carter, Orlando; The Hammer; The Way of All Flesh (Red Shift); Private Lives (Volcano Theatre); The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Orange Tree Theatre); The Sirens of Titan; The Odyssey; Pericles (London Bubble); Hang On; Salt (Theatre-Rites); Without Trace (V-TOL Dance Company); Here’s What I Did With My Body One Day (Lightwork); Animal Crackers; Cyrano de Bergerac (Royal Exchange, Manchester); MSM (DV8 Physical Theatre); Summer Lightning (Salisbury Playhouse); Marat/Sade; All My Sons (Bristol Old Vic); The Double (Glasgow Citizens Theatre); As You Like It (TAG Theatre);The Asylum of Antonin Artaud (Gate Theatre); Tip Top Condition (Lumiere and Son).
Television includes: The Night Manager, The Borgias; Hububb.
Film includes: Darkest Hour; Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; Tale of Tales; Anna Karenina.
Radio includes: The Scarlet Pimpernel; Faith Without God.
Eric also makes his own work, which includes the hybrid art installation/performance - A Voyage Around My Bedroom.
Rev Winemiller/Dr Buchanan
Theatre includes: Big Fish (The Other Palace); Boudica (Shakespeare's Globe); Terror (Lyric Hammersmith); Travesties (Apollo Theatre/Menier Chocolate Factory); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Theatre Royal Bath); Doctor Faustus (Duke of Yorks); Mr Foote's Other Leg (Hampstead Theatre/Theatre Royal Haymarket); The Ruling Class; Richard III; Macbeth (Trafalgar Studios); The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe (Kensington Gardens); Crackers (Belgrade Theatre); As You Like It; Romeo and Juliet (RSC/New York); Ahasuerus (RSC/Hampstead Theatre); The Taming of the Shrew; Morte D'Arthur; A Tender Thing; The Grain Store; Henry IV Part II; Henry V; Henry VI Parts I, II & III; Macbeth; Richard II; Richard III; A Comedy of Errors; Twelfth Night; Hamlet (RSC); King Lear (Liverpool Playhouse/Young Vic); The Breathing House; Art (Edinburgh Lyceum); The Trick is to Keep Breathing (Tron/Royal Court).
Television includes: Catastrophe; Doctors; Shetland: Dead Water; Dead Boss; No Holds Bard; Monarch of the Glen; Supergirly; EastEnders; Young Person's Guide To Becoming A Rock Star; The High Life.
John Buchanan
For the Almeida: The Twilight Zone; The Treatment.
Theatre includes: Much Ado About Nothing; Imogen; The Comedy of Errors; Titus Andronicus; The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Shakespeare’s Globe); Richard II; Henry IV Parts I & II; Love’s Sacrifice; The Jew of Malta; Candide; Titus Andronicus (RSC); Our Country’s Good (Out of Joint); There is a War (National Theatre); Bingo; The Grapes of Wrath (Chichester Festival Theatre); Shades (Royal Court).
Television includes: Endeavour; The Hollow Crown; Monroe; Sherlock.
Film includes: The Ritual; Stutterer.
Roger Doremus/Dusty
Theatre includes: Boudica (Shakespeare's Globe).
Tok trained at RADA.
Rosemary/Rosa Gonzales/Nellie
Theatre includes: King Lear; A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe); Life of Galileo (Young Vic); Image of an Unknown Young Woman (Gate Theatre); Dara; Behind The Beautiful Forevers (National Theatre); Macbeth (Park Armory New York/Manchester International Festival); The Taming of the Shrew; Much Ado About Nothing (RSC); The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (National Theatre Wales).
Television includes: Hang Ups; Ill Behaviour; Black Mirror; Call the Midwife; Fresh Meat.
Film includes: The Children Act; Cinderella.
Direction
As Director:
Theatre includes: From Morning to Midnight (Bridewell Theatre); Educating Rita (Durham Gala); Julie; What Are They Like?; Idomeneus (Northern Stage); You, Me, and Everything Else (Soho Theatre/UK Tour); Aftermath (Royal & Derngate); A Streetcar Named Desire - Parallel Production (Young Vic); Something Cloudy, Something Clear (Greenwich Theatre); Summer and Smoke (Southwark Playhouse); Bassett (New Diorama).
As Resident/Assistant Director:
For the Almeida: Ink.
Theatre includes: James and the Giant Peach; The wonderful Wizard of Oz; Here is the News from Over There; Cyrano de Bergerac (Northern Stage); The Taming of The Shrew (RSC); From Morning to Midnight; Liola (National Theatre); The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (ThreeSixty Productions); After Miss Julie (Young Vic); Dream Story (The Gate).
Rebecca trained at Goldsmiths, LAMDA, and on the National Theatre Studio’s Directors Course. Upon graduating she received a Jerwood Assistant Director Bursary to train at the Young Vic and in 2015 she won the acclaimed Regional Theatres Young Directors Scheme Bursary at Northern Stage. She was one of the first winners of the Michael Grandage Company Futures Bursary in 2016, was Runner-Up for the Royal Theatrical Support Trust Director Award 2016 and a 2017 finalist, and was a finalist for the 2014 & 2017 Genesis Future Directors Award at the Young Vic.
Rebecca is supported at the Almeida Theatre by the Eranda Rothschild Resident Director scheme.
Design
For the Almeida: King Charles III; Mr Burns, a Post-Electric Play; The Merchant of Venice; King Lear; Through A Glass Darkly.
Theatre includes: Woyzeck (Old Vic); Belleville; Elegy (Donmar Warehouse); The Weir (Donmar Warehouse/Wyndham’s); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Donmar Warehouse/Booth, New York); Julie; Deep Blue Sea; Medea; 13 (National Theatre); Dijinns of Eidgah; Hope; The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas; No Quarter; Remembrance Day (Royal Court); Constellations (Royal Court/Duke of York’s); Jesus Christ Superstar (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); A Number (Nuffield Theatre); On Off (Aarhus, Denmark); The Life of Galileo; Romeo and Juliet; The Merchant of Venice (RSC); Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness (Headlong/Nuffield); The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (KensingtonGardens); East is East (Trafalgar Studios/UKTour); Seventeen (Lyric Hammersmith); Mogadishu (Lyric Hammersmith/Royal Exchange, Manchester).
Opera and dance includes: Grand Finale (Hofesh Shechter Company); How the Whale Became (ROH); Wozzeck (ENO); The Flying Dutchman (Scottish Opera); Rigoletto (Opera Holland Park).
In 2015 and 2016 Tom provided the production design for the MTV Video Music Awards and recently worked as creative director for Sam Smith with Apple Music at the Tate Modern.
He was nominated for a Tony and an Outer Critics’ Circle Best Costume Design Award for King Charles III. In 2007 he received the Linbury Biennial Prize for Stage Design for his work with Headlong Theatre and the Jocelyn Herbert Award for his work with Headlong Theatre.
Lighting
Theatre includes: Constellations (Royal Court/West End/Broadway/UK tour); Jesus Christ Superstar; A Tale of Two Cities (Regent’s Park Open Air); Gundog; Road; Nuclear War; a profoundly affectionate passionate devotion to someone (-noun) ; X; Linda (Royal Court); The Lady From The Sea; Splendour (Donmar Warehouse); Jubilee (Royal Exchange, Manchester/Lyric Hammersmith); Cover My Tracks (Old Vic); Hamlet; Much Ado About Nothing; Blindsided (Royal Exchange, Manchester); The Two Noble Kinsmen; Doctor Faustus; Love’s Sacrifice; Arden of Faversham (RSC); The Winter’s Tale (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh); Imogen (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Weir (ETT); The Spoils (West End); Black Men Walking (Eclipse/UK Tour); The Oresteia (Home, Manchester); A Number (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton/Young Vic); Fantastic Mr Fox (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton/UK Tour); Mametz (National Theatre Wales); Protest Song (National Theatre); Depart; Turfed (LIFT); Boys Will Be Boys (Headlong/Bush Theatre); Kissing the Shotgun Goodnight (UK Tour).
Dance includes: Blak Whyte Gray (Barbican); Rosalind; Within Her Eyes; Everything & Nothing (James Cousins); Sun; Political Mother; The Art of Not Looking Back; In Your Rooms; Uprising (Hofesh Shechter); Untouchable (Royal Ballet); Clowns (Nederlands Dans Theater); Tomorrow; Frames; Curious Conscience (Rambert).
Opera includes: Orpheé et Eurydice (ROH/Teatro Alla Scala); Ottone; Life on the Moon (English Touring Opera); Nabucco (Opera National de Lorraine).
Sound
For the Almeida: Chimerica (also West End); Carmen Disruption; Blood Wedding.
Theatre includes: Fiddler On The Roof (Chichester Festival Theatre); A Woman of No Importance (Vaudeville Theatre); Coriolanus; Julius Caesar; Antony and Cleopatra; King John (RSC); House Of Bernada Alba (Royal Exchange); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Donmar Warehouse/Broadway); Fathers and Sons; Dimetos; Absurdia (Donmar Warehouse); As You Like It; Our Country’s Good; The Motherf***er With The Hat; Dara; Protest Song; Double Feature (National Theatre); The Believers; Beautiful Burnout; Love Song (Frantic Assembly); Hope; The Pass; The Low Road; Choir Boy (Royal Court); The House That Will Not Stand; Handbagged (Tricycle Theatre/West End); All My Sons (Schoenfeld Theater, New York); Angels in America (Headlong); Blue/Orange; Blackta; After Miss Julie (Young Vic); Thérèse Raquin (Theatre Royal, Bath); Twelfth Night (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); Much Ado About Nothing; To Kill a Mockingbird (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Kasimir & Karoline; Fanny och Alexander (Malmö Stadsteater); Tre Kronor (Dramaten, Stockholm).
Opera includes: Benjamin Dernière Nuit (Opera Lyon); How the Whale Became (ROH); American Lulu (Opera Group); After Dido (ENO).
Exhibitions include: So You Say You Want A Revolution? Records & Rebels 1965-70 (V&A); Exhibitionism: The Rolling Stones (Saatchi Gallery); Collider (Science Museum); Louis Vuitton: Series 3.
Carolyn has also created sound design elements for Shawn Mendes Illuminate Tour 2017 and Louis Vuitton: Spring/Summer 2015, Fall 2015, Spring/Summer 2016, Spring/Summer 2017 Ready To Wear Collection shows at The Louis Vuitton Foundation & The Louvre, Paris.
Carolyn won an Olivier Award in 2014 for Best Sound Design for her work on Chimerica.
Casting
For the Almeida: The Twilight Zone; Hamlet; Mary Stuart; Oil; Uncle Vanya; Medea; Oresteia; Game; Mr Burns; Chimerica (also West End); Before the Party; The Turn of the Screw; King Lear; Children’s Children; Filumena; The Knot of the Heart; Through a Glass Darkly; Measure for Measure; When the Rain Stops Falling; In a Dark Dark House; The Homecoming; Nocturne; Awake and Sing!; Dying for It; Out of the Fog.
Theatre includes: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace Theatre); Yerma; Blue/Orange; The Trial; Ah, Wilderness!; Man; A View from the Bridge (Young Vic / West End / Broadway); Happy Days; Public Enemy; The Shawl; Blackta; Wild Swans; After Miss Julie; A Doll’s House (Young Vic / West End / BAM); The Government Inspector; The Glass Menagerie; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone; Annie Get Your Gun; In The Red and Brown Water; Lost Highway; (Young Vic); Hamlet (Barbican); The Nether (also West End); Adler & Gibb; Birdland; The Mistress Contract; Khandan; The Pass; Gastronauts; Clybourne Park (also West End); The Heretic; Get Santa!; Kin; Red Bud; Tribes; Wanderlust; Spur of the Moment; Sucker Punch; Ingredient X (Royal Court); Martyr; The Events; The Golden Dragon; Bad Jazz; A Brief History of Helen of Troy (ATC); A Chorus of Disapproval; South Downs / The Browning Version; Absent Friends; Backbeat; Arcadia; Swimming with Sharks; As You Like It; Antarctica; The Weir (West End); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End / Sydney Festival); Pool (no water) (Frantic Assembly); Gaddafi: A Living Myth (English National Opera); Othello (Cheek by Jowl); The Girl on the Sofa (Edinburgh International Festival / Schaubuhne Theatre, Berlin).
Film includes: The Exception; Departure; Astoria; Adha Cup; Parliamo Glasgow; Harvest.
Julia is an Associate Artist at the Young Vic.
Resident Director
Theatre includes: Medea (Stockwell Playhouse); Cromwell’s Tour of Ireland (Courtyard Theatre/London Irish Theatre); The Suicided Man (Theatre Museum); Felo De Se (Covent Garden/Bussey Building).
Film includes: Beautiful Hair; Underexposure.
Dervla trained as an actor at the Court Theatre and National Youth Theatre.
Composition
Theatre and dance includes: 공·空·Zero: Restriction; Body and Time (Marc Brew Dance/Bora Kim/ARKO Arts Theatre/Seoul/Tour); What the Moon Saw; From Above (2Faced Dance/International tour); The Father (Trafalgar Studios); Vestige (Wayne Parsons Dance/UK tour); Traces Imprinted (Welsh Ballet); The Mountaintop (Stoke New Vic); Kite (Soho Theatre/UK tour); The Curing Room (The Pleasance, Edinburgh); I Am A Camera (Southwark Playhouse); Dream of Perfect Sleep (Finborough Theatre).
Film and television scores include: Little; Gypsy; The Trials; The Snail Man; Confection; Lost Boy; The Listener; Interlude.
Alongside a number of acclaimed solo releases, Angus has collaborated with a diverse range of filmmakers, choreographers, theatre directors, animators and photographers from across Europe and beyond, writing original music for award winning work across the arts. His solo works include Through Shadows, originally commissioned by the Barbican Centre and premiered at the venue in an arrangement for six grand pianos by the acclaimed Piano Circus. Other recent releases include albums Cry Wolf, Awake/Tides (1631 Recordings/Decca), and Thesis 07, an international collaboration with German trio InsaDonjaKai and artist Gregory Euclide.
His music has been broadcast around the world and heard on international commercials for the likes of Sony, Toyota & Vodafone, amongst many others. Angus grew up by the sea and now lives and works in London.
Costume Supervision
Theatre includes: Romantics Anonymous; Boudica; The Little Matchstick Girl (Shakespeare’s Globe); Woyzeck (Old Vic); Cosi Fan Tutti (Central City Opera Colorado); Dry Powder; IHO or The Intelligent Homosexuals Guide To Capitalism; Socialism with a Key to The Scriptures (Hampstead Theatre); The Deep Blue Sea (National Theatre); Elegy; The Vote (Donmar Warehouse); Red Velvet (Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company); Macbeth; La Musica; Creditors; The Cherry Orchard (Young Vic); Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage (National Theatre Wales/Out Of Joint); Mametz (National Theatre Wales); IGNIS (The Print Room); Dedication; The Nutcracker (Nuffield Theatre); Master and Margarita (Complicite/Barbican/UK Tour).
Voice Coach
For the Almeida: Chimerica (also West End).
Theatre includes: Oslo; The Beaux Stratagem; Market Boy; Caroline or Change; Therese Raquin; The Alchemist; The Rose Tattoo; Playing With Fire (National Theatre); The History Boys (National Theatre/West End); The Hypocrite; Hecuba; Oppenheimer (RSC); Everyone’s Talking About Jamie (Apollo/Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); Motown the Musical; Memphis the Musical; Hairspray (Shaftesbury Theatre); Neville’s Island (Duke of York’s/Chichester Festival Theatre); South Downs/Browning Version (Harold Pinter Theatre/Chichester Festival Theatre); Country Girl (Apollo); Butley (Duchess); Love Never Dies (Adelphi); Cabaret (Lyric); And Then There Were None (Gielgud); The Brothers Size; Vernon God Little; The Glass Menagerie; The Government Inspector; Euridyce (Young Vic); The Wizard of Oz (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); Knives in Hens (Donmar Warehouse); Witness for the Prosecution (County Hall, London); Combustion (Tara Arts); Occupational Hazards (Hampstead Theatre); Future Conditional; The Crucible (Old Vic); Each His Own Wilderness (Orange Tree Theatre); The Believers (Frantic Assembly); Grounded (Gate Theatre); The Nether; Routes; Truth & Reconciliation; Love Love Love; The Witness; The Victorian in the Wall (Royal Court); Jesus Jumped the A Train; Lovely and Misfit (Trafalgar Studios); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf; Oh the Humanity (Northern Stage); One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show (Eclipse Theatre/Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); Disgraced; Terre Haute; Artefacts; The Whiskey Taster (Bush Theatre); Damsel In Distress; She Loves Me (Chichester Festival Theatre); High School Musical 1&2 (Hammersmith Apollo/UK Tour); I Capture the Castle; Time of my Life (Watford Palace Theatre).
Opera includes: Pagliacci (ENO); Songs from a Hotel Bedroom (ROH).
Television includes: Doctor Who; Odyssey; Grantchester; Midsomer Murders; Millie Inbetween.
Film includes: Nine; Cosi; Broken; Omar; Brimstone; Exam.
★★★★★ Rebecca Frecknall’s whole production seems to tremble like a sustained, held high note: fragile, uncertain, almost unbearably tense.
Independent
★★★★★ There is magic in the sultry magnolia-scented air at the Almeida with this one
The Times
★★★★ restores Williams’s wrongly neglected play to a central place in the canon
The Guardian
The runnning time is approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes including a 15 minute interval. Please note this production features a gun shot and the smoking of real cigarettes.
EXPLORE SUMMER AND SMOKE
Cast
Seb Carrington
Nancy Crane
Patsy Ferran
Eric MacLennan
Forbes Masson
Matthew Needham
Tok Stephen
Anjana Vasan
Writer Tennessee Williams
Director Rebecca Frecknall
Design Tom Scutt
Lighting Lee Curran
Sound Carolyn Downing
Composition Angus MacRae
Casting Julia Horan CDG
Resident Direction Dervla Toal
Costume Supervision Lucy Martin
Voice Coach Michaela Kennen