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Playground Entertainment

From Alfawiki
Adapted from the English Wikipedia article Playground Entertainment, available under CC BY-SA 4.0Updated 26 July 2025
Playground Entertainment
Company typePrivate
IndustryEntertainment
Founded2012
FounderSir Colin Callender
Headquarters
New York and London
,
United States and United Kingdom
ProductsTelevision, film, theater productions

The Playground, LLC, operating under the name Playground Entertainment, is an independent production company specializing in television, film, and theater, with offices located in both New York and London. Established in 2012 by Sir Colin Callender, who previously served as President of HBO Films, the company has secured a prominent position within the entertainment industries of the United Kingdom and the United States.

The company’s body of work has received extensive acclaim, garnering numerous prestigious awards such as nine BAFTA Television Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, 14 Olivier Awards, 18 Tony Awards, 16 nominations for Emmy Awards, and a Peabody Award. Among its most notable productions are Wolf Hall (2015), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016), All Creatures Great and Small (2020), and Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (2024).

Television productions (2013–present)

Since 2013, Playground Entertainment has delivered more than 120 hours of television content tailored to audiences across both the UK and US. Significant titles include Dracula (2013) produced for NBC; the Emmy-nominated series The White Queen (2013) along with its follow-ups The White Princess (2017) and The Spanish Princess (2019) for Starz; the BAFTA- and Golden Globe-winning Dancing on The Edge (2013), a collaboration between BBC and Starz; the Golden Globe-nominated anthology series The Missing (2014–2016) for BBC and Starz; as well as Wolf Hall (2014), which earned both Golden Globe and BAFTA honors, adapted from Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novels for BBC and PBS.

More recent television works encompass The Dresser (2015), featuring Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins for BBC and Starz; Little Women (2017); the BAFTA-nominated adaptation of Howards End (2017); the Emmy-nominated King Lear (2018) starring Hopkins and Emma Thompson, co-produced by BBC and Amazon Prime Video; Channel 4’s Chimerica (2019); and Starz’s Dangerous Liaisons (2022).

Currently airing projects include the fifth season of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small, broadcast on Channel 5 and PBS; Peter Kosminsky's political thriller The Undeclared War (2022) for Channel 4 and Peacock; the upcoming adaptation of C. L. Skelton’s book series titled The Hardacres scheduled for Channel 5 in 2024; alongside the much-anticipated sequel Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (2024), which has received five nominations from the Royal Television Society.

In development are several forthcoming projects including Maigret, based on Georges Simenon’s novels for PBS Masterpiece; Chris O'Dowd's comedy-drama series Small Town, Big Story, intended for Sky UK; and Lynley, an adaptation of Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley mysteries set to air on BBC and BritBox.

Theater Productions (2013–Present)

Playground Entertainment made its debut with Lucky Guy in 2013, a play penned by Nora Ephron featuring Tom Hanks in his inaugural Broadway role. This production, which portrays the life of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike McAlary, secured two Tony Awards out of six nominations. In 2014, Playground brought to the stage Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina, which received four Tony nods including Best Play, alongside Hedwig and the Angry Inch starring Neil Patrick Harris, which garnered four Tony Awards, among them Best Revival of a Musical. The company also played a role in Kenneth Branagh’s first New York theatrical appearance with Macbeth and co-produced Jez Butterworth’s The River featuring Hugh Jackman.

Among recent significant ventures are the Broadway and West End runs of Dear Evan Hansen (2015–2020), which earned six Tony Awards including Best Musical and three Olivier Awards. Additional notable endeavors include the West End revival of Dreamgirls (2016), honored with two Olivier Awards; Duncan Macmillan’s adaptation of George Orwell’s novel 1984 (2016); and the West End revival of The Glass Menagerie (2017), which received seven Olivier Award nominations.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016–Present)

Playground Entertainment serves as co-producer of the worldwide sensation Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, collaborating with Sonia Friedman Productions and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions. The show premiered in July 2016 at London’s Palace Theatre, where it achieved a record-breaking nine Olivier Awards for a single production. Its Broadway debut followed in April 2018 at the refurbished Lyric Theatre, earning ten Tony nominations and winning six, including Best Play.

The production has since expanded internationally, with performances at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre—where it was nominated for seven Helpmann Awards—as well as engagements at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre, Hamburg’s Mehr! Theatre, Toronto’s CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, and Tokyo's TBS Akasaka Act Theatre. The U.S. National Tour commenced in autumn 2024 at Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre and is scheduled to continue into early 2025 with stops at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Pantages Theatre and Washington D.C.’s National Theatre.

List of Productions

Television

Theater

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