McKellen, Higgins, Jacobi & Sheen to Star in Donmar 2006 Season

Ian McKellen, Clare Higgins, Derek Jacobi and Michael Sheen are among the stars that will appear on the Donmar Warehouse stage in 2006.

McKellen and Deborah Findlay will headline the Donmar world premiere of The Cut by Mark Ravenhill best known for his play Shopping & Fucking. The show, running February 23 through April 1, centers on Paul, an ordinary man with a shocking secret. At home, he is a loving husband and father. At work, he administers the cut. In a society sickened by his profession, Paul struggles with his conscience and longs to tell the truth. Michael Grandage directs.

Higgins, currently starring in The Night of the Iguana, will appear in Phaedra. In the play, the title character harbors a guilty secret--an overwhelming passion for her stepson Hippolytus. But the secret he holds may be even worse. The version of the play being used by the Donmar was adapted by Frank McGuinness, who wrote the new version of Hecuba that Higgins starred in at the Donmar last year. Tom Caims will direct the mounting, which runs from April 6 through June 3.

Next up at the Donmar is Jacobi in John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father. The autobiographical play centers on a son's relationship with his father. Growing up in the shadow of the brilliant barrister, who adored his garden and hated visitors, and whose blindness was never mentioned, the son continually yearns for his father's love and respect. The production, directed by Thea Sharrock, is scheduled to run from June 8 through August 5.

Sheen will star in the world premiere of Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon, directed by Grandage. David Frost's interviews with Richard Nixon--following the Watergate scandal in 1972 and the President's humiliating resignation--drew the largest audience for a news interview ever. Could this British talk-show host be the one to elicit an apology from the man who committed one of the biggest felonies in American political history? Frost/Nixon is scheduled to run from August 10 through October 7.

The Donmar is currently presenting The Wild Duck, which is scheduled to run through February 18.