Shakespeare's Globe announced Dominic Dromgoole's Measure for Measure

Shakespeare’s Globe is delighted to announce that Dominic Dromgoole’s new production of Measure for Measure, running from 20 June to 17 October, will star Mariah Gale as Isabella, Dominic Rowan as Duke Vincentio and Kurt Egyiawan as Angelo. One of Shakespeare’s blackest comedies, the play explores the problematic mechanisms of sexual politics and social justice in a Vienna in which “some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall”.

The 2015/16 season in the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will open with short runs of four productions, including Luigi Rossi’s Orpheus – a new collaboration between Shakespeare’s Globe and the Royal Opera House. The candlelit theatre will also host The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead, by award-winning poet and author Simon Armitage, and revivals of Thomas Tallis by Jessica Swale and Derek Walcott’s adaptation of his Nobel Prize-winning epic poem Omeros.

Following the huge success of L’Ormindo, the first collaboration between Shakespeare’s Globe and the Royal Opera, early music specialist Christian Curnyn returns to conduct the Orchestra of Early Opera Company in a new production of Orpheus, running from 23 October to 15 November. Directed by Keith Warner, designed by Nicky Shaw and choreographed by Karl Schreiner, the opera will be performed in English with a new translation by Christopher Cowell. The young and dynamic cast is led by British soprano Mary Bevan in the title role.

Running from 3 November to 14 November, The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead represents the second time that award-winning poet and author Simon Armitage has joined forces with director Nick Bagnall. The two last collaborated on The Last Days of Troy, starring Lily Cole, which played at the Globe and the Royal Exchange in Manchester last summer. This modern retelling of Homer’s epic (a co-production between Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and English Touring Theatre) follows a government minister on a diplomatic mission to Istanbul, who becomes Europe’s most wanted man after a bar brawl. Suddenly plunged into the past, he must grapple his way back to the present and to his family, fighting for survival against unworldly beings and unnatural phenomena.

Specially commissioned for the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Thomas Tallis was described as “glorious” and “a skin-tingling pleasure” in reviews of its first run last year. Jessica Swale’s exploration of the life and work of the celebrated English composer follows him through the religious and political shifts of four Tudor monarchies. Directed by Adele Thomas, the production will feature a quintet of singers from The Sixteen and runs from 22 October to 8 November.

Derek Walcott’s haunting adaptation of his Nobel Prize-winning poem Omeros, directed by Bill Buckhurst, returns to the Playhouse from 26 to 31 October, following four extraordinary performances last year. Spanning time and continents, the piece transplants Achille, Hector and Helen to a St Lucian fishing village, underscoring their domestic dramas with broader themes of colonialism, ritual and untamed nature.

Mariah Gale recently starred in Proof (Menier Chocolate Factory), Three Sisters (Young Vic) and Rupert Goold’s Romeo & Juliet for the RSC. She won the Ian Charleson Award for her performances in Twelfth Night (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), The Last Waltz (Arcola) and ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Southwark Playhouse), and she was a member of the RSC ensemble company from 2009 to 2011. Her screen credits include New Tricks, Death Comes To Pemberley and Anne Frank.

Dominic Rowan’s recent stage credits include Katie Mitchell’s The Cherry Orchard and Carrie Cracknell’s A Doll’s House at the Young Vic, Medea at the National Theatre and Martin Crimp’s adaptation of The Misanthrope at the Comedy Theatre. He returns to the Globe following his critically-acclaimed turns as Touchstone in As You Like It and as the title role in Henry VIII.

Kurt Egyiawan recently appeared in the Globe's smash hit 2012 production of Twelfth Night with Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry, and Richard III with Mark Rylance, both of which also enjoyed hugely successful runs in the West End and on Broadway. His other stage credits include A Season in the Congo (Young Vic), Berenice (Donmar Warehouse) and Earthquakes in London (Headlong). His film credits include Joe Wright’s Pan and Skyfall.