Posner is currently the city’s most prolific director of the American playwright’s works. Notwithstanding Edward Hall’s recent production of Edmund at the National Theatre with Kenneth Branagh, Posner has dominated in the Mamet stakes with recent starry stagings of Oleanna (with Julia Stiles and Aaron Eckhart), A Life In the Theatre (with Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson) and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Minnie Driver, Hank Azaria and Matthew Perry). In a newspaper interview this summer, Posner declared that he would eventually love to direct all of Mamet’s stage works. John Mahoney is best known for his regular role in TV’s “Frasier” and in such films as “Moonstruck.” However, the English-born actor is a very experienced stage actor, having been asked to join Chicago’s Steppenwolf company by John Malkovich in the 1970’s. Previous London stage visits include The Man Who Came to Dinner at the Barbican (with Steppenwolf).

Romance, a satirical courtroom farce, was given its world premiere early in 2005 by New York’s Atlantic Theater Company. Mahoney plays the Judge. Also in the cast are Jeff Francis, Nigel Lindsay, Paul Ready, Nick Smapson, Colin Stinton and Nick Woodeson.

Costume design is by Peter McKintosh, lighting by Neil Austin. Sound is by Matthew Berry. The show is scheduled to run until Oct. 22, although many Almeida shows follow their Islington run with a West End transfer (most recently, Festen and The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?). After the run ends, Posner will stay on board at the Almeida for Richard Bean’s new version of Molière’s The Hypochondriac.

For more information call (0)20 7359 4404 or visit www.almeida.co.uk.