Shirley Jackson’s influential horror novel The Haunting of Hill House is being adapted for the stage for a U.K. tour launching this fall, Variety has learned.
The production centers on a group of investigators who take on the mystery of Hill House, with curiosity descending into fear as strange disturbances ripple through the mansion’s corridors.
Olivier and BAFTA award-winner Stef Smith has written the stage adaptation, which will be directed by Martin Constantine.
The Haunting of Hill House tour dates are as follows:
- Salisbury Playhouse: September 11 – October 3
- Richmond Theatre: October 6 – October 10
- Theatr Clwyd: October 13 – October 17
- Theatre Royal Brighton: October 20 – October 24
- Palace Theatre Manchester: October 27 – October 31
- Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse: November 3 – November 7
- Royal Lyceum Theatre: November 10: November 14
Wiltshire Creative is producing in association with Theatr Clwyd, with Mark Puddle, Alexander “Sandy” Marshall, and Patrick Myles presenting. The production is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
“From film and television to the stage, my mother Shirley Jackson’s legacy continues to endure through her iconic novel The Haunting of Hill House,” said Laurence J. Hyman, Jackson’s son. “I’m thrilled that this haunting classic will return in a new form, and that Stef Smith’s adaptation will capture the novel’s remarkable and unsettling spirit for audiences in a whole new way.”
“I find Shirley Jackson’s world intoxicating, thrilling and gut-wrenching,” added Smith. “I believe there is something so deeply theatrical at the heart of Hill House. From the spooky, to the surreal, through heartache and hope. I hope that our cast of characters will take the audience along for a ride quite unlike anything else. Above all we will examine that the biggest horrors are usually human.”
Published in 1959, Jackson’s novel has had three notable screen adaptions: Robert Wise’s The Haunting in 1963, Jan de Bont’s The Haunting in 1999, and Mike Flanagan’s “The Haunting of Hill House” in 2018.
