Grandage's Danton's Death, a New Hamlet On Tap at National Theatre

The National Theatre debut of director Michael Grandage, who will helm a revival of Danton’s Death, was announced by artistic director Nicholas Hytner at a September 22 press conference at the London venue. Also on tap is a new Hamlet, starring Rory Kinnear in the title role and three-time Olivier Award winner Clare Higgins (Vincent In Brixton, Sweet Bird of Youth) as his mother, Gertrude. Both productions will be part of the 2010 £10 season at the three-theater complex, whereby a sizable percentage of tickets in the National's largest auditorium, the Olivier, are sold for less than the cost of a movie ticket in the British capital.

The season kicks off in April with Marianne Elliott directing the Jacobean play Women Beware Women, by Thomas Middleton, opening in the Olivier in April. Critics' darling Elliott is currently represented at the National by All's Well That Ends Well and as co-director with Tom Morris of the West End smash War Horse, which was first seen at the National in October 2007.

Opening in June is a new play by Moira Buffini, Eurydice, to be directed by Richard Eyre, a former artistic director of the National. Buffini's previous National credits include the 2002 play Dinner, with 2009 Tony nominee Harriet Walter (Mary Stuart), which subsequently transferred to the West End.

July sees the busy Grandage opening his long-delayed production of the 1830s Georg Buchner classic, Danton's Death, set during the French Revolution. Plans to direct the same play a season or more ago were scuppered when Grandage took over from Kenneth Branagh as director of the Jude Law Hamlet, which is now on Broadway. Artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, Grandage barely seems to pause for breath in London but has yet to work at the National.

Hamlet completes the lineup, opening in October 2010. The Shakespeare classic reteams the two-time Tony winning Hytner with stars he has previously directed in Man of Mode (Kinnear, who won a 2008 Olivier Award for that his performance as Sir Fopling Flutter) and Major Barbara (Higgins).

In adddition to the £10 season, Hytner said that the 2010 National schedule will include a yet-to-be-named Eugene O'Neill revival from director Katie Mitchell. In a financial year that saw the National playing to 93% capacity across 25 productions, the Steppenwolf Theatre's visiting engagement of August: Osage County averaged a hefty 96% during its fall 2008 run.