Stage Version of Everything Is Illuminated to Premiere at North London's Hampstead Theatre

A world premiere stage adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's award-winning novel Everything Is Illuminated highlights the fall/winter season at North London's Hampstead Theatre.

The novel Everything Is Illuminated centers on a young Jewish New Yorker who arrives in the Ukraine to try to find and thank the woman who saved his grandfather in the Second World War. Liev Schreiber directed and wrote the screenplay for a 2005 film version of the book starring Elijah Wood. The stage version, adapted by Simon Block and directed by Rachel O'Riordan, is scheduled to run at the Hampstead from September 14 through October 14.

The play is followed at the Hampstead by the London premiere of an acclaimed Oxford Stage Company production of Faustus, a bold retelling of Christopher Marlowe's 16th-century play that is interwoven with a contemporary narrative. Rupert Goold's production opens on October 24 following previews from October 20 for a run to November 18.

The second world premiere that then follows is Ryan Craig's The Glass Room, opening on November 28 following previews from November 23. Revolving around a young Jewish human rights lawyer who is hired to defend an infamous Holocaust denier, he finds himself at the core of a conflict between one man's right to speak freely and the security of a community, as well as with his own family heritage. Ryan's last play to be seen in London was What We Did to Weinstein, which played last October at the Menier Chocolate Factory. The Glass Room runs to December 23.

Overlapping with The Glass Room is a musical puppet adventure entitled The Mouse Queen. The family show will open for daytime performances from December 7 through December 23 and then maintain a full schedule of matinee and evening performances from December 26 to January 6. This production, originally presented at Islington's Little Angel Theatre, is for those five years old and over.

Hampstead Theatre also announced a co-production with Half Moon Theatre in their studio Michael Frayn Space of Fin Kennedy's Locked In, a hip-hop drama set in an abandoned tower block, running from November 6 through November 10 and directed by Angela Michaels.