Award-winning director Nicholas Hytner (Guys & Dolls) is set to direct John Lithgow (3rd Rock From the Sun) as Roald Dahl in Giant at the Royal Court Theatre in London.
John Lithgow plays Roald Dahl alongside Elliot Levey as Tom Maschler in Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play Giant, directed by Nicholas Hytner.
In the play, Dahl’s family and Jewish publisher gather to navigate the fall-out from Dahl’s recent antisemitic outbursts in the press.
Giant will play at the Royal Court from 20 September to Saturday 16 November 2024.
The production is part of the Royal Court’s new 2024 season, under the Court’s new artistic director David Byrne.
John Lithgow is an acclaimed US actor of stage and screen. John Lithgow’s previous West End credits include starring opposite Nancy Carroll in the National Theatre revival of Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Magistrate in 2012 directed by Timothy Sheader.
His other theatre work includes winning a Tony Award in 1973 for his Broadway debut in David Storey’s The Changing Room. He has appeared on Broadway 25 times, earning five more Tony nominations, a second Tony Award, four Drama Desk Awards, and induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame.
For his screen work, John Lithgow has scored 13 Emmy nominations and 6 wins, for playing High Commander Dick Solomon on the hit NBC comedy series 3rd Rock from the Sun, Amazing Stories, Dexter, and playing Winston Churchill in Netflix’s The Crown. On film he landed Oscar nominations for The World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment, and his other films include All That Jazz, Footloose, Shrek, Interstellar, Bombshell and, more recently, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Conclave.
Nicholas Hytner is artistic director of the London Theatre Company, which runs the Bridge Theatre in London. His productions at the Bridge include Young Marx, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bach and Sons, John Gabriel Borkman and Guys and Dolls.
Hytner was Director of the National Theatre from 2003-2015 where he directed plays by Alan Bennett (The Madness of George III, The History Boys, The Habit of Art); Shakespeare (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Timon of Athens, Othello); plays from the classical repertoire (The Alchemist, Phèdre, London Assurance); and a wide range of new plays. He delivered a repertoire of 20 productions a year, including War Horse and The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time, and introduced NT Live cinema broadcasts around the world.
He has has worked widely in opera and film (The Lady in The Van, The Madness of King George.) Theatre awards include three Olivier Awards, five Evening Standard Awards and three Tony Awards.
Read more about John Lithgow.
Read more about the Royal Court Theatre’s new 2024 season.
More about tickets to Giant at the Royal Court Theatre in London.
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