The Crown's Matt Smith & Claire Foy to Reunite in Lungs at the Old Vic for Socially Distanced Performances

The Old Vic has announced a new artistic initiative called Old Vic: In Camera, which will combine a run of socially distanced performances of Duncan MacMillan’s Lungs with The Crown's Matt Smith and Claire Foy followed by a series of rehearsed play readings, all streamed live from the Old Vic stage with the empty auditorium as a backdrop.

With minimal staging and accessible only to audiences via camera and livestream, the series will serve as both an exciting creative experiment and a means of supporting the box office while London theaters remain shut down as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Lungs is scheduled to begin socially distant performances in June with exact dates to be announced.

Each performance of Lungs and each subsequent play reading in the series will be available for up to 1,000 people per night (with some matinees) replicating the venue's usual audience capacity size. Tickets will be priced from £10–£65. While all "seats" will offer the same view from the comfort of home, The Old Vic is asking audiences to give what they can to help support the theater.

Smith and Foy had been previously scheduled to headline the piece at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from March 25 through April 19. Directed by Matthew Warchus, Macmillan's emotional rollercoaster of a play follows a couple wrestling with the planet's biggest dilemmas. The ice caps are melting, there's overpopulation and political unrest, and two people are considering bringing a baby into the world.

Learn more about The Old Vic: In Camera series here.