Oxford Playhouse will mark its return to producing with a major revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, directed by Artistic Director Mike Tweddle. This inventive new staging celebrates the play’s return to the Oxford Playhouse stage after a quarter of a century.
Set in a fictional New England academic town, Albee’s fast-paced, bitingly funny and emotionally devastating drama finds a resonant home in Oxford.
The production stars award-winning actor and RSC Associate Artist Katy Stephens as Martha, opposite Matthew Pidgeon as George. Stephens’ credits include The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Titus Andronicus, while Pidgeon has appeared in Stranger Things: The First Shadow and Wolf Hall.
Leah Haile plays Honey, with Ben Hall as Nick. Haile’s previous work includes The Winter’s Tale and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, while Hall has appeared in The Day of the Jackal and Henry VI: Rebellion / Wars of the Roses.
Mike Tweddle said: “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is an extraordinary piece of writing, strange, visceral, darkly funny and emotionally devastating. Staging it in Oxford feels uniquely powerful: it’s a story rooted in the tensions, hierarchies and power games of an academic town. This production launches a renewed era for Oxford Playhouse, as we begin producing work that is both artistically daring and deeply connected to our community. This play is a storytelling rollercoaster showcasing everything that great theatre can offer to our curious and adventurous audiences.”
The creative team includes award-winning designer Liz Ascroft for set and costumes, lighting designers Ashley Bale and Will Hayman, and sound designer and composer Max Pappenheim.
Speaking about the approach, Tweddle adds: “Albee grew up around vaudeville through his grandfather, and the play is laced with those rhythms, games, theatricality, heightened moments of absurdity. Our design will embrace this meta-theatrical quality in a deliberate interplay between artifice and emotional truth.”
Liz Ascroft said: “The first reading of any script is the most important to me. There are many phases to experience over the process of reading and researching in order to uncover the right setting for the play. I keep my sketchbook to hand and, with an open mind, note down or draw any thoughts that occur. I take those thoughts, images, instincts and ideas and start exploring from there. In this instance, we, the audience, are the most like Nick and Honey as the guests of Martha and George, who, over the course of an evening, cannot help but be invited, taken, dragged and hopefully made to face our own guarded self perceptions, lies, truths and fears.”
First staged in 1962, Albee’s masterwork remains a scorching exploration of marriage, ambition, illusion and truth. This production coincides with the 60th anniversary of the celebrated film adaptation starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who themselves appeared at Oxford Playhouse in 1966.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? runs at Oxford Playhouse from Friday 20 February to Saturday 7 March 2026.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
