Donmar Announces How I Learned to Drive Cast
Date: 19 May 1998
Helen McCrory and Kevin Whateley will star in the Donmar Warehouse production of Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive which runs 24 June to 8 August 1998 (with previews from 18 June).
How I Learned to Drive tells the story of L'il Bit, a young girl growing up in rural Maryland and Peck, her uncle by marriage. Overwhelmed by her oddball, sexually obsessed family, painfully large teenage breasts and adolescent desire to become a woman, Li'l Bit turns to the seemingly safe Peck for comfort and car driving skills.
How I Learned to Drive is the 22nd play from Vogel, a drama lecturer at Brown University. It's fifteen month run off-Broadway culminated last month with Vogel becoming only the tenth woman since 1917 to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Helen McCrory plays L'il Bit and Kevin Whateley makes his Donmar debut as Uncle Peck. Whately is best known for his many UK television series including Inspector Morse and Peak Practice. His last West End appearance was in the 1996 production of Twelve Angry Men at the Comedy Theatre. McCrory is also familiar to British television audiences and appears the cinema release of a new BBC film The James Gang. On stage, she has appeared in National Theatre productions of The Seagull and Blood Wedding. She featured in the Donmar's production of In a Little World of Our Own as part of the theatre's recent Four Seasons festival.
McCrory and Whately will be joined by Michael Colgan, Jenny Galloway and Phillipa Stanton as the omnipresent three part chorus, weaving in and out of the story as various members of L'il Bit's family, as well as friends and other incidental characters.
How I Learned to Drive marks director John Crowley's first production as the newly appointed associated director of the Donmar. The designer is Rob Howell, with lighting by Paul Pyant, sound by Fergus O'Hare and movement by Jonathan Butterell.
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