Liv Hill, Siena Kelly and Tanya Reynolds are cast in the world premiere of Ava Pickett’s Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning play 1536. 

Lyndsey Turner (Chimerica) directs this fiendishly smart and funny new play, set in the year of Anne Boleyn’s death, which asks whether female solidarity can survive in a world where barbarism and misogyny are state sanctioned. The production opens on Tuesday 13 May with previews from Tuesday 6 May, and runs until Saturday 7 June. 

Kings don’t kill their wives alright? It’s not – it just don’t happen. It doesn’t. 

Tudor England.  

A field in Essex.  

Three women hurry to their childhood meeting place, thirsty for gossip from London.  

Word spreads of a clash between the King, Henry VIII and his Queen, Anne Boleyn. And closer to home, another rumour threatens to catch fire. 

As these women realise the parallels between their ordinary, rural lives and the royal drama taking place at a distance, they are faced with several choices, all of which end in violence.  

Written as part of the Genesis Almeida New Playwrights, Big Plays Programme, Ava Pickett’s 1536 was the winner of the 2024 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and was commended by The George Devine Award for its “sparkling dialogue and savage undercurrent”. Lyndsey Turner (Chimerica) directs this fiendishly smart and funny new play which asks whether female solidarity can survive in a world where barbarism and misogyny are state sanctioned. 

Cast includes Liv Hill, Siena Kelly and Tanya Reynolds, with further casting to be announced. 

1536 is the first play commissioned through the Genesis Almeida New Playwrights, Big Plays Programme to make its world premiere at the Almeida. 

The production is generously supported by The Charlotte Aitken Trust and Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor advised fund held at The London Community Foundation.