Oscar-nominated actress Ruth Negga returns to the Irish stage this autumn to tackle the title role in a gender-bending production of Hamlet for the Gate Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. Negga has come a long way from her début in Irish film Capital Letters (2004), which impressed director Neil Jordan so much that he reportedly changed the script of 2005’s Breakfast on Pluto so she could appear. Her other TV credits include Love/Hate, Misfits, and Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, while her first major big screen triumph came in Loving, based the true story of an interracial couple at the centre of the 1950s Supreme Court case which led to the end of anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S. The film premiered at Cannes and saw the Trinity alumna nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, and a BAFTA Rising Star Award.

Now she takes on Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s most recognisable plays. ‘To be or not to be’, that is the question – one that has most recently drawn in the likes of Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch, who both took on the Danish prince for the London Stage. Negga played female lead Ophelia in 2010 opposite Rory Kinnear, and while casting her as Hamlet may seem an unusual choice, if there’s one thing she’s shown it’s that she’s got range.

South African playwright and director Yaël Farber helms the production. Farber has made a formidable name for herself as a skilled handler of politically and racially-charged work. This will be Farber’s first play at the Gate, where she’ll be supported by Tony Award-winning American set and costume designer Susan Hilferty, making this a production led by some truly remarkable women. As far as her leading actor goes, Farber has nothing but praise: “Ruth Negga’s profound gifts as an artist, combined with her meticulously observed and felt sense of the world around her, hold the promise for a Hamlet I believe most needed now.”

Previews start on September 21st with a six-week run.