Round House Theatre and Olney Theatre Center continue their longstanding partnership and kick off the 2023-2024 Season with a co-production of Ink, written by James Graham. This Tony Award-winning Broadway and West End hit is an electrifying new drama, directed by Jason Loewith. Press Night is Tuesday, September 5, 2023.  Please see below for complete program details and ticket information.

London, 1969. A brash young Australian named Rupert Murdoch approaches journalist Larry Lamb with a staggeringly ambitious proposition: to turn the struggling paper The Sun into the best-selling tabloid in the UK…within a year. An unexpected partnership is born as Lamb and Murdoch assemble a team of scrappy underdog journalists and begin to transform The Sun into a populist juggernaut. Once they discover the formula to success the consequences are thrilling and terrifying. This “riveting” (The Guardian) Tony Award-winning Broadway and West End hit depicts the birth of our hyper-partisan news culture in a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction drama that will have you on the edge of your seat.

Artistic Director Ryan Rilette is thrilled to continue Round House’s longstanding collaboration with Olney Theatre Center, and to welcome back Olney Artistic Director Jason Loewith with Ink. “We have assembled an amazing team for this phenomenal play, and the creative team has designed a stunning production,” says Rilette. “As with our collaborations on In the Heights, Angels in America, and ‘Fela!’, Ink promises to be a not-to-be-missed production.”

Director Jason Loewith, who produced the American premiere of James Graham’s comedy Labour of Love at Olney Theatre Center, is looking forward to unpacking another of the British playwright’s incisive forays into culture and politics. “Ink is a magnificent story, told by a virtuoso playwright at the top of his game. Graham’s view of this moment in 1969 tells us more about the state of our culture today than any number of talking heads you could watch just about anywhere,” says Loewith. “The play also affords us an opportunity to watch some of this region’s most extraordinary acting talent performing as an ensemble for the first time.”

The brilliant cast includes Sophia Early (Sleep Deprivation Chamber at Round House Theatre and Meredith Willson’s The Music Man at Olney Theatre Center), Maboud Ebrahimzadeh (Oslo at Round House Theatre and The Invisible Hand at Olney Theatre Center), Chris Genebach (Kinky Boots at Olney Theatre Center and The Till Trilogy at Mosaic Theater Company), Michael Glenn (Small Mouth Sounds at Round House Theatre and Red Velvet at Shakespeare Theatre Company), Zion Jang (Romeo and Juliet at NAATCO/Two River Theater and Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure at Portland Stage), Cody Nickell (The Tempest at Round House Theatre and The Nosebleed at Woolly Mammoth Theatre), Kate Eastwood Norris (The Tempest at Round House Theatre and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Folger Theater), Andrew Rein (The Makropoulos Secret at Washington Stage Guild and Jericho at 59E59), Walter Riddle (A Raisin in the Sun with The National Playersand Fences at Virginia Repertory Theatre) Ryan Rilette (Uncle Vanya at Round House Theatre and No Sisters / Three Sisters at Studio Theatre), Todd Scofield (Oslo at Round House Theatre and Holiday at Arena Stage), Craig Wallace (August Wilson’s Radio Golf at Round House Theatre and King Lear at Shakespeare Theatre Company), and Awesta Zarif (Selling Kabul at Signature Theatre and Jane Eyre at Geya Theatre Center). The offstage understudy for this production is Pratigya Paudel.

The cast is joined by a dynamic creative team that includes Scenic Designer Tony Cisek, Costume Designer Deb Sivigny, Lighting Designer Minjoo Kim, Sound Designer Matthew M. Nielson, Projections Designer Mike Tutaj, Choreographer Nikki Merza, Dialect Coach Lisa Nathans, Properties Coordinators Anna Cable and Jason Deering, Casting Director Sarah Cooney, Dramaturg Naysan Mojgani, and Resident Stage Manager Che Wernsman.

Tickets may be purchased by calling 240.644.1100 or ordering online at RoundHouseTheatre.org. Round House Theatre is located at 4545 East-West Highway, one block from Wisconsin Avenue and the Bethesda station on Metro’s Red Line.