Tracey Scott Wilson's newsroom thriller, inspired by a real Pulitzer Prize scandal, receives its West End premiere in the National's Olivier auditorium this autumn.
Letitia Wright leads the UK premiere of Tracey Scott Wilson’s newsroom thriller The Story, which opened at the National Theatre on the South Bank on Thursday 27 August 2026. Ashley Thomas, Lorraine Toussaint and Wilf Scolding complete the company.
The play draws on a real case. In 1981 the Washington Post’s Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer for Jimmy’s World, a profile of a child heroin addict. Within days she admitted he did not exist and returned the prize.
The play does not restage the case. It follows a Black reporter who fabricates a story to escape the “minority interest” beat she has been confined to. It asks what a newsroom’s appetite for a certain kind of story does to the people who supply it.
The Story premiered at The Public Theater in New York in November 2003, directed by Loretta Greco with Phylicia Rashad in the company. Wilson has since written for The Americans and Fosse/Verdon and co-written Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic.
Clint Dyer, who wrote and directed the Death of England trilogy, was the National’s deputy artistic director until 2025. He stages the play in the Olivier, the National’s largest auditorium.