A new play written and directed by the filmmaker Quentin Tarantino will open in London’s West End next year, the companies developing the production announced on Wednesday.
The play, “The Popinjay Cavalier,” is set in 1830s Europe and, according to a short news release, is a “rambunctious comedy of deception” inspired by the “swashbuckling” epics of stage and film.
Sonia Friedman Productions, a veteran producing company with multiple Tony wins, and Sony Pictures Entertainment are both involved in the effort.
Details regarding casting and a creative team, as well as a specific theater, will be announced at a later date, the news release said.
A representative for Friedman declined to comment on Wednesday beyond the news release. A spokeswoman for Tarantino could not immediately be reached. A representative for Sony Pictures Entertainment did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tarantino’s foray into theater comes several years after the release of his ninth feature film, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” in 2019. The director has long hinted that he will retire after making 10 films, arguing that filmmakers have only a finite number of good movies in them. His fans have anxiously awaited news of a 10th film. (A project known as “The Movie Critic” was reported to have been abandoned in 2024.)
“I want there to be an umbilical cord from my first film to my last film,” he told Conan O’Brien in 2016. “I like the idea of doing a body of work, 10 movies and then ‘OK, that’s it — that’s what I have to say.’ And let that filmography just stand for itself.”
Last week, the actress Rosanna Arquette, who starred in Tarantino’s film “Pulp Fiction” (1994), criticized the director in an interview with The Times of London for repeatedly using a racial slur in that film. “I cannot stand that he has been given a hall pass,” Arquette said. “It’s not art. It’s just racist and creepy.”
Tarantino said in a letter on Monday that he remembered Arquette being “thrilled” to be a part of “Pulp Fiction.”
“But after I gave you a job, and you took the money,” he said, addressing Arquette, “to trash it for what I suspect is very cynical reasons, shows a decided lack of class, no less honor.”
Derrick Bryson Taylor is a Times reporter covering breaking news in culture and the arts.
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