Voting in general elections gets TV treatment from Donmar and Channel 4 The unglamorous British tradition of trudging to dingy back rooms in parish churches or to primary schools or libraries to vote in the general election is to be dramatised and broadcast live on television in the final 90 minutes of next year's campaign. The Vote, an unprecedented collaboration between the Donmar Warehouse and Channel 4, is a real-time play for theatre and television written by James Graham that explores the somewhat old-fashioned act of voting in Britain Josie Rourke, the Donmar's artistic director, said: "It's fair to say people have broadcast plays live on television before; whether anyone has broadcast a play in real time, reflecting the events as they are happening ... we think that's pretty cool and don't think anyone has done it before." Rourke will direct the play, which she developed after working with Graham on Privacy, an interactive exploration of surveillance and internet privacy during which audience members were asked to keep their phones switched on. She said the British voting process was an enduring tradition, still done with pencils and rulers and local authority staff working a very long day. We got completely excited about ... whether or not it actually counts and what it means to go in and have that moment and do that thing. There will be about 50 actors playing voters and polling station staff. Before the live broadcast on More4 on 7 May there will be a two-week run of the play at the Donmar, with tickets available via a ballot. Rourke stressed there would be no problem with the broadcasting rules and code of conduct as the play would not be party political. "This is more a piece about the act of voting and democracy in the 21st century," she said. The play, Rourke said, was an experiment that came with risks. I genuinely don't know what all of the outcomes of it will be but one outcome will definitely be some learning and maybe some recalibrating of people's thinking about how theatre might work on television. The theatre announced three plays as part of its 2015 spring season. On 21 May, Howard Davies will direct a new play by Steve Walters called Temple, which is a fictional account of the Occupy London camp that sprung up outside St Paul's Cathedral in October 2011. Simon Russell Beale will play a character known only as the Dean. The Donmar stressed the work was very much a fictional account of events that led to the resignation of the cathedral's canon chancellor - the parish priest, broadcaster and Guardian columnist, Giles Fraser. The third play opening in February will be a revival of Patrick Marber's Closer, which premiered at the National Theatre in 1997 and won a slew of awards as best new play. It later became a film starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen. The Donmar revival will star Nancy Carroll, Oliver Chris, Rachel Redford and Rufus Sewell, with David Leveaux directing.