The novel has been adapted for the stage several times, including by playwrights Alan Lyddiard and Michael 

Gene Sullivan. In 1976, a theater version of 1984 was produced in Teatar &TD, from Zagreb, former 

Yugoslavia. The performance, which also included CCTV monitoring system, was adapted and directed by 

Nenad Puhovski. It created some political controversies, but was never banned.

A 2013 adaptation by Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillan for the Headlong Theatre Company, which took 

the novel's Newspeak appendix as its starting point, has toured the UK extensively, as well as played 

commercially in the West End. A Broadway production began previews 18 May and opened on 22 June 

2017 at the Hudson Theatre running until 8 October for 125 performances, while an Australian production 

began a six-city limited tour from 13 May 2017.

Theater composer Jonathan Larson began writing a musical adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1982, as 

his first attempt at writing a full-length musical. Although the Orwell estate was reportedly interested, they 

ultimately denied him the rights due to the then-upcoming film adaptation. Instead, Larson focused on a 

similar dystopian musical titled Superbia, which used some of the cut songs from his 1984, although it also 

went unproduced. Songs from Superbia, including ones originally written for Larson's 1984, have been 

released over the years and are featured prominently in the autobiographical musical Tick, Tick… Boom! 

and its film adaptation.

A new stage adaptation by Ryan Craig and directed by Lindsay Posner will open at the Theatre Royal, Bath 

in September 2024 before embarking on a UK tour.