Vicky Featherstone, Royal Court's Artistic Director, Announces the London Theater's New Season

The Royal Court Theatre's artistic director Vicky Featherstone has announced the London theater company's January to July 2014 season. Playwrights Simon Stephens, Jennifer Haley, Tim Crouch, Vivienne Franzmann and Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti will debut new works, while the company’s associate director Tony winner John Tiffany (Broadway’s Once, Macbeth) will helm the world premiere production of John Donnelly's The Pass.

The Jerwood Upstairs season will begin with the The Pass, playing January 13 through March 1. The production is about sex, fame and how much you're willing to lose in order to win. The cast will include Gary Carr (Downton Abbey) and Russell Tovey (The History Boys, HBO's Looking) as two promising young football players embroiled in a sex scandal.

Next up in the space is Vivienne Franzmann's Pests (a co-production with Clean Break and Royal Exchange Theatre), running from March 27 through May 3. Directed by Lucy Morrison, Pests tells the story of two sisters from the same nest. Pink loves Rolly. Rolly loves Pink. And Pink loves getting bombed off her face. Both trapped in a tiny rotting world and both cuffed to a past that refuses to release them, one wants out while the other needs in.

The Jerwood Upstairs will then play host to Khandan (Family) by Bhatti, playing June 11 through 28. A co-production with Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Khandan (Family) will be directed by Roxana Silbert and centers on widowed matriarch Jeeto, who has spent her life working hard and making sacrifices for her children. But her eldest son Pal isn't following in her footsteps.

The Jerwood Theatre Downstairs season kicks off with Birdland by Stephens (The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time), running from April 3 through May 24. Directed by Carrie Cracknell, the play follows Paul, a rock star at the height of his fame, played by Andrew Scott (TV's Sherlock). It's the last week of a massive international tour, and as the inevitable end of the road looms closer, and a return home becomes a reality, the music is starting to jar.

Next up is Crouch's Adler & Gibb, playing June 13 through July 5. A co-production with the Royal Court and L.A.'s Center Theatre Group, Adler & Gibb will be directed by Crouch and star Karl James and Andy Smith. The play follows Janet Adler and Margaret Gibb, conceptual artists working in New York at the end of the last century, and tells the story of a raid—on a house, a life, a reality and a legacy.

The Jerwood Downstairs wraps up with the U.K. premiere of Haley's The Nether (a co-production with Headlong), running from July 17 through August 9. Directed by Jeremy Herrin, the play originally premiered at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in L.A. and won the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. The Nether is an intricate crime drama and a haunting sci-fi thriller that explores the consequences of making dreams a reality.