A hit Broadway musical based on a banned 19th- century play about teenagers discovering sex is coming to London.

Spring Awakening, by German writer Frank Wedekind and with an indie rock score, is the centrepiece of the Lyric Hammersmith's autumn-winter season.

David Farr, the theatre's outgoing artistic director, saw the show in New York and asked the creative team for a British production which will run in January. Farr, who is leaving to join the Royal Shakespeare Company after directing the Lyric's production of The Birthday Party, said: "This is the climax of the season. The original play is not very well known but is very important. It's a beautiful, romantic story."

Kicking off the new season is 365, a provocative play based on the policy of giving young people who are leaving care 24 hours on their own in a practice flat to equip them for adulthood.

Other highlights are a version of Othello set in a northern pub and a Christmas production of Cinderella.

• The RSC has announced a string of other appointments to its creative team. They include Rupert Goold, winner of the Evening Standard's best director award for Macbeth last year, and Roxana Silbert. With Farr, they will be associate directors.

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