The production will run from the 8th May until the 13th June.
Full casting has now been confirmed for the UK premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s romantic comedy, directed by Blanche McIntyre.
The production sees MyAnna Buring (anthropology, Hampstead Theatre; Twilight) and Patrick Kennedy (Photograph 51, Noël Coward Theatre; Blue Moon) play She and He – two actors with a history who are thrown together as romantic leads in a forgotten 1930s melodrama.
They will be joined by Toto Bruin (It’s A Sin); Oliver Dimsdale (The Argument, Hampstead Theatre); James Phoon (Much Ado About Nothing, Theatre Royal Drury Lane; Bridgerton); Rolf Saxon (Eureka Day, Aurora Theatre California; Mission Impossible – Final Reckoning) and Jill Winternitz (Once, Phoenix Theatre; Havoc)
Lauren and Humphrey; Elizabeth and Richard; Brad and Angelina. It’s famously hard for actors to keep romance under wraps after the director shouts ‘cut’. Fact and fiction are so easily blurred under the dazzling haze of the spotlights.
It’s the first day of rehearsal for long-forgotten melodrama, The Last Kiss. Enter – a plot twist. Art imitates life, as our two leading actors have an explosive romantic history of their own. With opening night approaching, a passionate affair may be waiting in the wings…
Talking about the play, Sarah Ruhl said: “Most plays I’ve written have some kissing in them. And when I come to work, sit behind a table, and watch people kiss for a job, knowing that the actors have also come to work, and are now kissing for a job… well, over the years, I’ve thought: how strange. And so, I wanted to write a play about the phenomenon of kissing on stage. In a way, it’s a love letter to theatre and all the actors I’ve ever worked with and I’m delighted to be working with Blanche McIntyre again at Hampstead Theatre.”
Stage Kiss is director Blanche McIntyre’s second collaboration with Sarah Ruhl following the successful Hampstead Downstairs and Off West End award-winning production Letters from Max in 2025. Blanche’s other recent productions at Hampstead Theatre also include the critically-acclaimed sold out run of The Assembled Parties and the record-breaking The Invention of Love.
The production has been designed by Robert Innes Hopkins with lighting design by Oliver Fenwick, sound design by Gregory Clarke and composition by Grant Olding. Fight, movement and intimacy direction is by Yarit Dor, the assistant director is Olivia Munk and the casting director is Juliet Horsley CDG.
To book tickets visit: https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2026/stage-kiss/