EXIT THE KING

Michael Grandage is sitting in the auditorium of the Donmar Warehouse, the intimate 250–seat theatre that he has been running for the past nine years, watching an imaginary play unfold in his mind's eye. 'If a play means something to me and makes me learn something about myself,' he says, 'then I'm going to be watching it thinking, "What would I do in that situation?" or "How would I feel?" And if I am thinking that,' he smiles, and then gestures around him at the empty rows of burgundy seats, 'then there's a good chance that some of them will be thinking it too. And if, even for a moment, they are thinking the same thing as me, then that all–important magical connection has been made between the play and its audience. And that,' he says, one oratorial finger raised, 'that – right there! – is what excites me.' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]