LONDON, Oct. 16 -- Anyone hoping to see David Tennant on the Almeida stage has a long wait ahead. The theatre said on Thursday that he will play Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer, but not until early 2028, the last dated production in the first season programmed by its new artistic director, Dominic Cooke.

The box office moves much sooner. Tickets for the first two productions, Caryl Churchill's Three and a Bit and Alexander Zeldin's Inequalities trilogy, go on sale to patrons and Gold and Friends Plus members at noon on Tuesday, October 20, to Almeida Friends on October 22 and to the general public on October 27. The other dated productions carry only the line "Tickets on sale in 2027."

Cooke said the season "explores ideas...