Rarely performed works by Eugene O’Neill and Marguerite Duras, a Simon Stephens play directed by Ivo van Hove, a version of The Trial starring Rory Kinnear and two bold Shakespeare productions are among the highlights of an enticing 2015 lineup at the Young Vic theatre in London.

The programme was announced this morning alongside the launch of The Departure, the latest film in the Young Vic shorts series. Available to watch exclusively on theguardian.com, The Departure is a prequel to A Streetcar Named Desire. Gillian Anderson directs and resumes the role of Blanche DuBois in the film, which was written by Andrew O’Hagan.

After the return later this month of its acclaimed Happy Days, starring Juliet Stevenson, the Young Vic will present Eugene O’Neill’s comedy Ah, Wilderness! described by David Lan, the theatre’s artistic director, as “a dappled portrait of a Connecticut childhood”. Natalie Abrahami directs a cast including Janie Dee.

Rory Kinnear then returns to the stage for the first time since his Olivier-winning Iago at the National. He will play Franz Kafka’s Josef K, arrested for an unrevealed crime, in Nick Gill’s adaptation of The Trial, directed by Richard Jones.

Ivo van Hove, who won acclaim for his Young Vic staging of A View from the Bridge (which transfers to the West End this month), will direct the UK premiere of Song from Far Away, a new play by Simon Stephens in which a young man returns home after the death of his brother and “attempts to reconnect with his sibling through a series of letters”. This is Stephens’s first original play for the Young Vic after his series of English-language versions of other works, most recently The Cherry Orchard.

Lan says: “We only produce Shakespeare when a director has a powerful need to do a particular play at a particular time.” The theatre is staging two plays by the Bard. A “deeply emotional but sexy take” on the problem play Measure for Measure, starring Romola Garai as Isabella, will be directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins. Following their success with Medea at the National Theatre, director Carrie Cracknell and choreographer Lucy Guerin will reunite for a dance-theatre version of Macbeth, co-produced with Birmingham Rep and HOME in Manchester, which will play over Christmas.

The Young Vic’s Maria studio will present World Factory, Zoë Svendsen and Simon Daw’s exploration of the garment industry, in which audiences become factory managers. Jeff James will direct the first major London revival of Marguerite Duras’s La Musica, about a couple on the cusp of divorce.

These shows join the already announced Lippy, A Number and three one-act plays by Tennessee Williams.