#this was the original Windsor Theatre Company production which transferred from Windsor's Theatre Royal to the Duchess in London

[mariocki]

Production stills from the 1981 Duchess Theatre staging of The Business of Murder, with original cast members Francis Matthews as Stone, George Sewell as Hallett and Lynette Davies as Dee.

[shelbyhuesario]

#AllisonMack joins the cast of "Red Velvet" at @TheOldGlobe in San Diego (March 25th - April 30th) #Smallville

  SAN DIEGO (March 2, 2017)—The Old Globe today announced the complete cast and creative team of Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti. In-demand director Stafford Arima (Broadway’s Allegiance, Off Broadway’s Altar Boyz, West End’s Ragtime) returns to the Globe, following Allegiance and Ace, to helm the award-winning drama, which runs March 25 – April 30, 2017 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage of the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Opening night is Thursday, March 30 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets start at $29, on sale now, and can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE, or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park. Red Velvet is a stirring drama that transports audiences to the turbulent backstage world of London’s Theatre Royal in the early 1800s. Edmund Kean, the greatest actor of his generation, can’t go on tonight as Othello, and his company is in disarray. A young American actor named Ira Aldridge arrives to step into the role—but no black man has ever played Othello on the English stage. His groundbreaking performance upends stage tradition and changes the lives of everyone involved. Lolita Chakrabarti’s multi-award-winning play uncovers the fascinating true story of a pivotal figure in theatre history. Stafford Arima returns to The Old Globe with a stunningly theatrical production of a play that the London Telegraph called “informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking.” Albert Jones leads the cast as Ira Aldridge. His extensive credits include Lincoln Center’s acclaimed Henry IV on Broadway and the Off Broadway productions of Macbeth, Pericles, and Richard III. His television and film credits include “House of Cards,” “The Night Of,” American Gangster, and Cadillac Records. Joining him are Michael Aurelio (The Merry Wives of Windsor and Richard III at Theatricum Botanicum) as Casimir and Henry Forrester; Sean Dugan (The Four of Us at the Globe, Next Fall on Broadway, “Smash,” “Oz”)as Pierre Laporte; San Diego actress Monique Gaffney (Craig Noel Award winner, Globe for All’s Much Ado About Nothing and All’s Well That Ends Well)as Connie; John Lavelle (Macbeth, The Royale, 2013 Shakespeare Festival at the Globe, The Graduate on Broadway)as Charles Kean; Allison Mack (10 seasons of WB/CW’s hit series “Smallville,” “Wilfred”)as Ellen Tree; Amelia Pedlow (Globe’s The Metromaniacs, Off Broadway’s The Liar and The Heir Apparent) as Halina Wozniak, Betty Lovell, and Margaret Aldridge; and Mark Pinter (Macbeth, Othello, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Globe, Rothschild & Sons Off Broadway) as Terence and Bernard Warde. The creative team includes Jason Sherwood (Scenic Design), David Israel Reynoso (Costume Design), Jason Lyons (Lighting Design), Jonathan Deans (Sound Design), Lynne Shankel (Original Music), Jenn Rapp (Movement, Associate Director), David Huber (Vocal Coach), Caparelliotis Casting (Casting), and Jess Slocum (Production Stage Manager). “Theatre is very good at bringing neglected pieces of history to life, and Red Velvet does that with uncommon vividness and power,” said Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. “Ira Aldridge’s story is remarkable on its own terms for the impact he had on theatrical history and the obstacles of racism and exclusion he struggled through. But in Lolita Chakrabarti’s hands, Aldridge’s life is transformed into metaphor. She takes us on a journey to a place we didn’t know existed, and then shows us ourselves in the figures dwelling there. I’m thrilled to bring this play to San Diego and excited to see the theatrical magic that the talented Stafford Arima and his colleagues will work on our stage.” Lolita Chakrabarti (Playwright) is an award-winning actress and writer. Her debut play, Red Velvet, premiered in 2012 at Tricycle Theatre in London, where it returned in 2014 before transferring to St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York. In 2016 the play opened at the prestigious Garrick Theatre on London’s West End as part of Kenneth Branagh’s season of plays. Red Velvet garnered for Ms. Chakrabarti the 2012 Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright; 2012 Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright; 2013 Asian Women of Achievement Award for Arts & Culture; 2012 WhatsOnStage Award nominations for London Newcomer of the Year and Best New Play; and a 2012 Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. Red Velvet earned further rave reviews in its New York transfer. Ms. Chakrabarti also wrote Joy for Last Seen at Almeida Theatre and a five-part adaptation of The Goddess for BBC Radio 4. She runs Lesata Productions with Rosa Maggiora and Adrian Lester. They produced Of Mary, a short film directed by Mr. Lester, which won the Best Short Film Award at the 2012 Pan African Film Festival and was officially selected for the Raindance, Underwire, London Short, Montreal Black International, Independent Black Women’s, and Toronto Black Film Festival. Stafford Arima (Director) previously directed the Globe productions of Allegiance and Ace. His selected work includes Allegiance (Broadway), Ragtime (West End, eight Olivier Awards nominations including Best Director and Best Musical), A.R. Gurney’s Two Class Acts (The Flea Theater), The Tin Pan Alley Rag (Roundabout Theatre Company), Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (Stratford Shakespeare Festival), Candide (San Francisco Symphony), Altar Boyz (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical, seven Drama Desk Award nominations), Poster Boy (Williamstown Theatre Festival), The Secret Garden (Lincoln Center), Total Eclipse (Toronto), Carrie (MCC Theater, five Drama Desk nominations including Outstanding Revival of a Musical), bare (2012 Off Broadway revival), Abyssinia (Goodspeed Musicals), Spring Awakening (University of California, Davis), Bright Lights, Big City (Prince Music Theater), and Marry Me a Little (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park). Mr. Arima was the associate director for the Broadway productions of Seussical and A Class Act. He graduated from York University, where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Prize for Excellence in Creative Work. He is Artistic Advisor for the Broadway Dreams Foundation, an adjunct professor at UC Davis, and a proud member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Allison Mack (Ellen Tree) began her professional acting career at the age of four. Throughout her childhood, she worked on numerous television and feature films. Although she had been working consistently for over a decade as a child actor, it was in her late teens when she landed her defining role, playing reporter Chloe Sullivan on the WB/CW hit series “Smallville.” Eventually in 2010, due to the popularity of her portrayal of Chloe, Ms. Mack led DC Comics to officially introduce the character. She earned several awards and nominations for her performance, establishing her as one of television’s most sought-after geek goddesses. In November 2008, Ms. Mack went behind the camera and made her directorial debut with the “Smallville” episode “Power,” and she went on to direct additional television episodes as well as produce and direct feature films. Today Ms. Mack serves as President and top trainer at The Source, which she and accomplished philosopher, physicist, and educator Keith Rainiere developed. The Source is a curriculum providing a unique toolset and innovative exercises to increase one’s mastery in the art of compassion through the discipline of acting and expression. Red Velvet is supported in part through gifts from Dow Divas, HM Electronics, Inc., and The Estate of Madelon McGowan. SINGLE TICKETS to Red Velvet start at $29 and go on sale to the general public on Friday, February 24 at 12:00 noon. Tickets can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE [234-5623], or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park. Discounts are available for full-time students, patrons 29 years of age and under, seniors, military members, and groups of 10 or more. Performances begin on March 25 and continue through April 30, 2017. Performance times: Previews: Saturday, March 25 at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday, March 26 at 7:00 p.m.; Tuesday, March 28 at 7:00 p.m.; and Wednesday, March 29 at 7:00 p.m. Opening night is Thursday, March 30 at 8:00 p.m. Regular Performances: Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:00 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8:00 p.m., Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. There will be an additional matinee performance on Wednesday, April 19 at 2:00 p.m. and no matinee performance on Saturday, April 22. LOCATION and PARKING INFORMATION: The Old Globe is located in San Diego’s Balboa Park at 1363 Old Globe Way. Through a special arrangement with the San Diego Zoo, Old Globe evening ticket-holders have the opportunity to pre-purchase valet parking in the Zoo’s employee parking structure. With a drop-off point just a short walk to the Globe, theatregoers may purchase fast, easy, convenient valet parking for just $20 per vehicle per evening. Pre-paid only, available only by phone through the Old Globe Box Office. Call (619) 234-5623 or visit www.theoldglobe.org/plan-your-visit/dir ... et-parking. There are numerous free parking lots available throughout the park. Guests may also be dropped off in front of the Mingei International Museum. The Balboa Park valet is also available during performances, located in front of the Japanese Friendship Garden. For additional parking information visit www.BalboaPark.org. For directions and up-to-date information, please visit www.theoldglobe.org/plan-your-visit/dir ... directions. Promo vid:  HERE Full press release: HERE Allison Mack Interview:  HERE Red Velvet Article:  HERE

[latestnews2018-blog]

Obituary: Dame Gillian Lynne was a leading light of dance

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/obituary-dame-gillian-lynne-was-a-leading-light-of-dance/

Obituary: Dame Gillian Lynne was a leading light of dance

The choreographer with ferocious energy helped create dozens of hits including ‘Cats’ and ‘The Phantom of the Opera’

Dame Gillian Lynne, who has died aged 92, was a figure of extraordinary versatility and longevity in the dance world, the choreographer of such world-renowned musicals as Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, the creator of scores of stage shows and television dance films, and also a former Royal Ballet ballerina, musical theatre star, and a Hollywood co-star — and lover — of Errol Flynn.

Even as she approached 90, she kept a working pace of ferocious energy, recreating a lost 1940s classical ballet for Birmingham Royal Ballet and co-directing a large new production of Cats in the West End in 2014. She told an interviewer: “It’s only because I’ve been so busy I’ve not had time to die.”

Her CV of shows, roles and awards ran to 10 pages.

Two weeks ago she became the first non-royal woman to have her name on a West End theatre, when the composer of Cats, Lord Lloyd-Webber, renamed the New London Theatre, Drury Lane — the venue for the show’s record-breaking 21-year run — the Gillian Lynne Theatre. Lynne was borne onstage in a golden throne by four bare-chested men, bedecked with pink ostrich feathers.

With her long slim limbs, frequently displayed to great advantage in short dresses and leotards even in her eighties, Lynne insisted that her arrestingly youthful looks were the result of being married to a man 24 years younger than her.

Lynne crossed every borderline in dance, choreographing straight ballets for Western Theatre Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Northern Ballet, creating new television ballet dramas and enjoyed being known in the dance business as the “queen of sexy”.

“I remember saying to the cast of Cats that we wanted it to be the sexiest show ever,” she recalled. “I told them that our aim was to make people jump up from their seats, rush home and leap into bed to make love.”

Yet she also regularly created the dances for the Royal Opera and English National Opera — for Wagner’s Flying Dutchman and Parsifal, Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage and Berlioz’s The Trojans, as well as for popular films such as Wonderful Life, Half a Sixpence, Yentl and Man of La Mancha.

Despite two hip replacements (she shared a surgeon with the Queen Mother), she remained able to tuck her feet behind her ears at 88, and produced a fitness DVD to prove it. “Retirement’s the biggest mistake you can make,” she said.

Born Gillian Barbara Pyrke on February 20 1926, the only child of Barbara and Leslie Pyrke, a Bromley house furnisher, she lost her mother in an early tragedy that she said drove her achievements throughout her life. In 1939 her mother and three friends went on a shopping trip and were all killed in a car crash, leaving four families motherless.

The young Gillian had been encouraged in dancing by her mother, but the accident, and wartime evacuation, interrupted her progress. When her father joined the Army she was evacuated to Somerset, but ran away. Her mother’s sister became her guardian back in south London and helped her win a place at the Cone Ripman dance school.

As a teenager she began performing with Molly Lake’s Ballet Guild, and in 1944 danced the leading role in Swan Lake at a gala for the Daily Telegraph’s then ballet critic A V Coton. For the programme, Molly Lake changed the girl’s name to Gillian Lynne.

One of the guests was the founder of Sadler’s Wells Ballet, Ninette de Valois, who invited Gillian to join the company. During her seven years with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Gillian collected a quiverful of new leading roles. The American choreographer George Balanchine picked her to double Beryl Grey’s role in Ballet Imperial, and Frederick Ashton cast her, aged 20, in the second night of his 1946 masterpiece Symphonic Variations.

She was frequently cast in dramatic roles such as Myrta, the queen of the supernatural Wilis in Giselle and the Black Queen in de Valois’s Checkmate, and she featured prominently in Robert Helpmann’s ballets Adam Zero and Miracle in the Gorbals. She was also a soloist in the historic Sadler’s Wells Ballet performances of The Sleeping Beauty that reopened the Royal Opera House in 1946, and at the company’s celebrated New York debut in 1949.

On the Sadler’s Wells Ballet’s second US tour in 1951 Gillian Lynne went to see the new Broadway production of South Pacific, which “changed my life”. Within two years, aware that she was likely to remain a secondary soloist in classical ballet, she took up the London Palladium’s offer to become its resident star ballerina, performing alongside such household names as Vera Lynn, Terry-Thomas, George Formby and the Billy Cotton Band.

Her salary jumped from pounds 15 to pounds 40 a week, and she turned down de Valois’s request that she return to the ballet: “I had smelled another world, one that I knew I could conquer.” Spotted by a Hollywood scout at the Palladium, in 1952 she was hired by Warner Brothers to play the sultry gipsy dancer Marianna in Errol Flynn’s The Master of Ballantrae, and the two had a brief affair.

In a characteristically unlikely sequence of events, she returned to Covent Garden to dance in the Royal Opera’s Tannhauser and Aida, then starred in Goody Two Shoes in Windsor and Puss In Boots at Coventry’s Empire, supported by Morecambe and Wise and Harry Secombe.

Soon after, she landed the first of many jobs dancing in BBC television productions, then performed live: she performed the Dance of the Seven Veils in Salome, played Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and narrated and mimed all nine characters in a 1959 live filming of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. To train for the last, the BBC sent her to Jacques Lecoq’s renowned mime school in France, an experience that she later drew on for Cats.

Gillian Lynne’s first choreography was also for television, Western Theatre Ballet’s jazz-ballet The Owl and the Pussycat, composed by Dudley Moore. Moore next collaborated with her on her first original stage work, an innovative revue of jazz, ballet and words, Collages, for the 1963 Edinburgh Festival, which was so successful that it transferred to the Savoy in London.

In 1973 she and Moore accepted a BBC Two challenge to create a Saturday night live television Soccer Ballet, as a rival attraction for viewers of Match of the Day.

She directed award-winning dance sequences for episodes of The Muppet Show in the late 1970s, and in 1987 created a celebrated BBC television dance film about the life of L S Lowry, A Simple Man, which she adapted for Northern Ballet Theatre to perform in theatres. She also choreographed for her great friend, the skater John Curry, when he essayed a move from ice to the boards in 1978.

However, it was her creation of Cats with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Trevor Nunn in 1981 that was Gillian Lynne’s passport to world celebrity. An acrobatic “dance-ical” in cat costumes making a sexy semi-pantomime from T S Eliot’s poems was hardly expected to be a world smash, but it ran for 18 years on Broadway and 21 in the West End. Gillian Lynne would stage dozens of productions around the world till the end of her life, including a new West End staging in 2014-16.

The record-breaking popularity and longevity of Cats were overtaken in 1986 by the next Lloyd Webber musical with Gillian Lynne as musical stager and choreographer, Phantom of the Opera, directed by Hal Prince. Gillian Lynne used her backstage knowledge of the Royal Opera House to bring atmospheric veracity to the Paris Opera of the story, and it became the most financially successful musical ever created, winning Best Musical at both Britain’s 1986 Olivier Awards and New York’s 1988 Tony Awards.

It is still playing in New York, by a long margin the longest-running Broadway show in history. Aspects of Love, Lloyd Webber’s 1989 musical, which once again Trevor Nunn directed and Gillian Lynne choreographed, was less successful. It closed on Broadway after less than a year, losing $8 million (Dh29.38 million), and was described in The New York Times as “perhaps the greatest flop in Broadway history”.

Gillian Lynne directed or choreographed more than 50 shows, including the RSC’s The Comedy of Errors and The Boy Friend (both directed by Nunn), and on Broadway and in the West End Roar of the Greasepaint, Pickwick, My Fair Lady and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She created several original shows for the London Palladium, including Queen of the Cats and Hans Andersen. Among opera productions she directed and choreographed for the Royal Opera and English National Opera were Bluebeard, Parsifal and The Trojans.

As a ballet choreographer she became associated with Northern Ballet Theatre, after the star of A Simple Man, Christopher Gable, became artistic director at the Leeds company. But her later works for the company, Lippizaner and The Brontes, were less successful than the Lowry ballet.

She was a tireless advocate for popular music and jazz dance, and made acclaimed television dance films on the Beatles (The Fool on the Hill for Australian TV) and on Burt Bacharach and Hal David (The Look of Love for the BBC). She enthusiastically joined Twitter when she was 85, but remained strongly sceptical of other modern developments in the dance profession, believing that an old-fashioned work ethic was what trained the best.

Among Gillian Lynne’s many honours were Olivier Awards for the RSC’s The Comedy of Errors (1977) and lifetime achievement (2013), a Bafta for A Simple Man (1987), and the Samuel G Engel TV Award for her BBC drama Le Morte d’Arthur (1985).

In 1997 she was appointed CBE and in 2014 DBE, for services to dance and musical theatre. She published her autobiography, A Dancer in Wartime, in 2011, and was elected vice-president of the Royal Academy of Dance in 2012, receiving its top honour, the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.

Gillian Lynne’s first marriage to the barrister Patrick St John back in 1948 did not survive her affair with Errol Flynn. In 1980, during auditions for My Fair Lady, which she was directing, a 27-year-old actor, Peter Land, auditioned for the juvenile lead, Freddy Eysnford-Hill. “He was standing there at the bar, and he was drop-dead gorgeous. We just looked at each other,” she recalled. He was exactly half her age when they married in 1980.

Peter Land survives her. There were no children.

[londontheatre]

YANK! Original Manchester cast, credit Anthony Robling

Full casting is announced for YANK! which transfers to the Charing Cross Theatre in the summer for a seven-week season from Monday 3 July – Saturday 19 August 2017. The UK spring première of the musical production at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester received extensive critical acclaim. The cast of the original production are joined by three new performers during the London run, with a Press Night on Monday 10 July.

A poignant love story based on the true, hidden history of gay soldiers during World War Two, YANK! focuses on the life of Stu, who is called up to serve in the forces in 1943 and becomes a reporter for Yank Magazine, the journal ‘for and by the servicemen’. Telling the stories of the men in Charlie Company, the musical explores what it means to be a man, and what it is to fall in love and struggle to survive in a time and place where the odds are stacked against you.

Scott Hunter will reprise his role as Stu. Stage credits include Cinderella (Trinity Theatre), Grease (European tour) and Howard Goodall’s The Kissing Dance. Joining the company as Mitch is Andy Coxon, whose credits include Beautiful – The Carole King Musical (Aldwych Theatre), 20th Century Boy – The Marc Bolan Musical (UK tour), Les Misérables (Queen’s Theatre) and European tours of The Rocky Horror Show and Evita. Sarge/Scarlet will be played by Waylon Jacobs, whose credits include Chicago, Memphis and We Will Rock You (West End) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regent’s Park). Bradley Judge will play Rotelli. His credits include Aladdin (The Brindley Theatre, Runcorn), Don’t Run (Waterloo East Theatre) and Sister Act (Aberystwyth Arts Centre).

The rest of the company is completed by members of the original Manchester production: Benjamin Cupit who made his professional debut as Professor in the Hope Mill production; Lee Dillon-Stuart (Les Misérables at Queen’s Theatre and Carousel for Pitlochry Festival Theatre) as Tennessee; Chris Kiely (The Ladykillers and Pygmalion for Theatre Royal Windsor, Sunset Boulevard at Yvonne Arnaud Theatre and a national tour of Chess) as Artie; Kris Marc-Joseph (Anno Domini at The Actors Church, Children of Eden and See Rock City and Other Destinations at Union Theatre) as Czechowski; Mark Paterson (tours of Horrible Histories and Peter Pan at Manchester Opera House/New Victoria Woking) as Lieutenant/NCO; Tom Pepper (The Mystery of Edwin Drood at the Arts Theatre, and on television, Drifters, Grandpa in My Pocket and Red Dwarf) as Cohen/Speedy; and Sarah-Louise Young (a member of award-winning improvised musical The Showstoppers at Apollo Theatre and extensive cabaret credits including Fascinating Aida) as Louise.

YANK! is based on the Off-Broadway hit production from 2010, with book and lyrics by American writer David Zellnik, with his brother Joseph Zellnik’s musical score paying homage to the timeless music of the 1940s. The musical is directed by James Baker, and is produced by Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment, Hope Mill Theatre, Ben Millerman with Jim Kierstead and Guy James.

Completing the creative team are James Cleeve as musical director; choreographer Chris Cuming; designer Victoria Hinton; lighting designer Aaron J. Dootson; sound designer Chris Bogg; and casting director Benjamin Newsome.

YANK! is the latest collaboration between leading London-based theatre production company Aria Entertainment and one of Manchester’s newest and leading arts venues, the award-winning Hope Mill Theatre. They first joined forces in January 2016 to spearhead the arts venue as a platform to showcase, revive and bring new musical theatre to the north of England. The transfer to Charing Cross Theatre is helmed by the three producers of the original production at Hope Mill, who are now joined by Jim Kierstead and Guy James.

LISTINGS INFORMATION YANK! CHARING CROSS THEATRE The Arches Villiers Street London WC2N 6NL Dates Monday 3 July – Saturday 19 August

http://ift.tt/2q7btmn LondonTheatre1.com

[londontheatre]

Hannah Murray – Photo by Jason Alden

Hannah Murray, star of Game of Thrones and Skins to lead an all-female cast in a thrilling new production of Posh. Press night is Monday 3 April at 7.30pm.

OLD MONEY. NEW PROBLEMS. DIFFERENT GENDER. Hannah Murray (Skins, Game of Thrones, Untitled Detroit Project) is to lead the cast for the world premiere of an all-female version of Posh. Full casting for the production has been announced today.

This thrilling new production, which will run at London’s Pleasance Theatre from 29th March, gives Laura Wade’s play a new, topical voice by allowing women to take centre stage in roles originally written for men. The production will be directed by Off West End Award winner Cressida Carré.

Darkly comic, and disgracefully entertaining, Laura Wade’s universally acclaimed Posh, burst to life at the Royal Court theatre in 2010 with a cast that featured future stars Kit Harrington and James Norton, before transferring to the West End. Receiving a fanfare of plaudits, Posh became a huge hit with critics and audience alike.

Now the riotous story of Oxford student dining club, a fictionalised version of the infamous Bullingdon Club, will be reinvented for the first time by a company of all-female actors.

In the private dining room of a gastro pub, 10 young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. As members of an elite student dining society, they’re bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence and bloody good wine.

This thrilling new production has a topical voice. However, this isn’t just a jolly: these women are planning a revolution. Welcome to the Riot Club.

Posh was long-listed as Best New Play in the Evening Standard Awards and nominated Best New Play in the Whatsonstage Awards. It was filmed in 2014 for cinema release as The Riot Club, directed by Lone Scherfig and starring Max Irons, Sam Claflin, Freddie Fox and Douglas Booth.

Hannah Murray, named Best Actress at the Tribeca Film Festival for her portrayal of ‘Sara’ in the Danish film Bridgend, was last seen on stage in London in Martine at the Finborough Theatre, for which she was nominated ‘Best Female Performance’ at the Off West End Awards. Hannah made her West End debut in Polly Stenham’s That Face at the Royal Court and her breakthrough role was playing ‘Cassie’ in E4’s cult series Skins, before going on to star in features Chatroom, God Help The Girl, Lily and Kat and The Chosen. She will next be seen reprising the role of ‘Gilly’ in the final series of HBO/SKY series Game of Thrones and in August she will take on one of the lead roles in Katherine Bigelow’s Untitled Detroit Project, set in 1967, about one of the largest citizen uprisings in the United States’ history.

Hannah Murray said: “I am so excited to be a part of this production, it’s a fascinating opportunity to explore and investigate the nature of privilege – a topic I feel there is an increasing urgency to examine and discuss. Working with an all-female ensemble cast is a brilliant opportunity to collaborate with a fantastic company of talented women, which is not something that happens often enough.”

The rest of the cast features Lucy Aarden (Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, 1st Witch, Macbeth, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Greenwich Theatre); Cassie Bradley (at the National Theatre, Husbands and Sons and Nurse in Sam Mendes’ King Lear); Alice Brittain (Trevor Nunn’s The War of the Roses at the Rose, Kingston); Molly Hanson (Hermia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Windsor); Verity Kirk (Cate in Sarah Kane’s Blasted at STYX); Macy Nyman (Wendy in Peter Pan, Exeter Northcott), Toni Peach (Beetles From The West, Barbican Theatre, Plymouth; Jessica Siân (White Lead at Hampstead Theatre); Sarah Thom (Tom Hardy’s Taboo, Bette Davis in Bette & Joan – The Final Curtain, St James Theatre); Gabby Wong (West End includes understudied and played Mephistopheles in Doctor Fautus at the Duke of York’s, and for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Volpone,The Jew of Malta, Love’s Sacrifice. She was Gold Nine in the Star Wars film Rogue One); Amani Zardoe (has just finished filming Victoria & Abdul with Judi Dench. She is also filming Will for TNT. Her stage roles include The Spoils at Trafalgar 1 and Measure for Measure at Shakespeare’s Globe).

Creative team: Director Cressida Carré Set & Costume Designer Sara Perks Co-Costume Designer Sarah Mills Lighting Designer Derek Anderson Sound Designer Harry Barker Producer Tom Harrop for Can’t Think Theatre Company

Cressida Carré (Director) Cressida won the Off West End Award for Best Choreography for the UK premiere of Titanic. The production opened at Southwark Playhouse, transferred to Toronto, Canada and was then restaged at Charing Cross Theatre. As a director, her other work includes: Avenue Q (UK tour 2014/15/16 & Hong Kong), Spear (Courtyard Theatre Hereford), The Lost Christmas (Trafalgar Studios), Betwixt (Edinburgh Festival), Marry Me A Little (Etcetera Theatre).

Cressida Carré said: “I am so looking forward to exploring the play with this fantastic all-female cast. We are in a very exciting time in theatre where existing works are being turned on their head giving us so much more potential to play with and the reinvention of many are opening up our perceptions in so many ways. Gender equality, privilege and class are certainly topics which are prevalent today and it will be exciting to see what happens when these historically male characters are played by women.”

Laura Wade (Writer) Laura Wade’s plays include Posh (Royal Court Theatre and West End), Tipping the Velvet (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), Alice (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), Kreutzer vs. Kreutzer (Globe Theatre, Sydney Opera House and Australian tour), Other Hands (Soho Theatre), Colder Than Here (Soho Theatre and MCC Theatre New York), Breathing Corpses (Royal Court Theatre), Catch (Royal Court Theatre, written with four other playwrights), Young Emma (Finborough Theatre), 16 Winters (Bristol Old Vic Basement) and Limbo (Crucible Studio Theatre, Sheffield). Films include The Riot Club. Laura Wade trained with the Royal Court Theatre’s Young Writers Programme in London, and was a Writer on Attachment at Soho Theatre. Awards include the Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, the Pearson Best Play Award and the George Devine Award. Laura Wade’s plays have been performed in the UK, USA, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Mexico.

Laura Wade said: “It’s always interesting to see a new cast take on Posh, but it’ll be fascinating to see what light an all-female company can throw on the play’s world of power and privilege. I’m often asked what Posh would have been like if there were women in the Riot Club instead of men. Perhaps now I get to find out.”

LISTINGS INFORMATION Tom Harrop for Can’t Think Theatre Company presents the all-female production of POSH by Laura Wade

Pleasance Theatre Carpenters Mews North Road LONDON N7 9EF

Box Office 020 7609 1800 www.pleasance.co.uk

http://ift.tt/2kUHBmz LondonTheatre1.com