The National Theatre (NT) has announced details of its final season under the directorship of Rufus Norris, who leaves in mid-2025.
The 2024/25 programme will include nine productions on the NT London stages as well as UK transfers to The Lowry, Salford, and Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff.
Norris’s decade-long tenure has seen the NT programme expand, including outreach to young people. This outreach will continue, with plays being streamed to schools through the National Theatre Collection service, now in its sixth year. The streaming is free for state schools, FE colleges and libraries, and available to purchase by private institutions.
At the start of 2025, the NT will again tour secondary schools, this time with a new play by Bristol playwright Ross Willis and director Ned Bennett; The LeftBehinds depicts a race to save the planet after an apocalypse. The tour will cover 11 areas nationwide, in collaboration with local theatres.
In addition, the NT is continuing its Connections programme, which celebrates its 30 anniversary in June 2025. Connections, the NT’s nationwide annual youth theatre festival, gives youth groups the opportunity to stage new plays written for young people, performing them in an NT partner theatre. In 2024, nearly 270 youth theatres and schools were involved.
NT executive director and co-CEO Kate Varah said: ‘It has been a joy and privilege to work alongside Rufus for the past three years. His unwavering commitment to creating a truly national theatre, platforming new writers and artists, has given the country a decade of exciting and important cultural moments.
‘Whether through the stories told on our stages, across the UK and around the world, or through his dedication to providing opportunities for young people and communities to experience theatre, the work of the National Theatre reaches more people than ever before, with an innovative new global digital footprint, all sparking creativity and changing lives. The qualities you see in his work – heart, generosity and integrity – have been the hallmarks of his leadership.’