Set design by Michael Annals for Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey into Night, National Theatre Company, New Theatre (now the Noel Coward Theatre), 1971.

Michael Annals (1938-1990) trained at Hornsey College of Art and began his career designing sets and costumes for the Old Vic. In 1963 the newly formed National Theatre Company moved into the Old Vic and Annals joined them, having his first major success with his designs for Peter Shaffer's historical epic, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964). He went on to have an international career, designing for the theatre and for ballet, opera and film, but is most closely associated with the National Theatre, where he worked until the 1970s. In 1971 he created a notable setting for the National's production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, which starred Laurence Olivier and was directed by Michael Blakemore. This began a working relationship with Blakemore which lasted for 12 years. Annals frequently worked in the United States and was Associate Professor of Scenic Design at Yale in 1966-1967. In 1984 he gave up the stage and took up photography and illustration.

Long Day's Journey into Night opened at the New Theatre in December 1971 and ran there until March 1972. It moved to the National Theatre's usual home at the Old Vic in August 1972 and played in the repertoire until September 1973. This design, which the artist has annotated as '1st sketch', has been signed and dated as 1972. The date could have been added later or the design may be a copy, made by the artist after the production's opening and possibly intended as a gift. It shows Annals's first ideas for what O'Neill describes as the 'Living Room of James Tyrone's summer home'.