X Files Anderson Returns with Royal Court's SwingDate: 16 January 2004
X Files star Gillian Anderson – who won last year’s Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Best Actress Award for her West End debut in What the Night Is For - will return to the London stage this spring. She’ll appear in the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman’s The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, which opens at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs on 31 March 2004 (previews from 25 March), continuing to 1 May.
Anderson is best known as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in TV's cult sci-fi hit The X Files, which finished filming its ninth and final series last year; while her film credits include The X Files Movie, The House of Mirth and Playing by Heart. Before her screen successes, Anderson trained as a stage actress in the US, where her theatre credits have included The Philanthropist and The Vagina Monologues.
For The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, she’ll be joined in the five-strong cast by Nancy Crane, Dmitri Goritsas, Kate Harper and John Sharian. The production will be directed by Royal Court artistic director Ian Rickson.
Rebecca Gilman’s previous plays include The Glory of Living (which won her the 1999 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright), Spinning into Butter and the Olivier-nominated Boy Gets Girl. The new piece concerns a painter whose savaging by the critics of her latest exhibition leads to mental breakdown and a stay in a psychiatric hospital.
Currently at the Royal Court Downstairs, English Touring Theatre’s production of Richard Bean’s Honeymoon Suite continues until 7 February 2004 and is followed, from 25 February to 6 March, by actor-turned-playwright Lennie James’ New Zealand-set play, The Sons of Charlie Paora (See News, 14 Nov 2003).
NOTE: Booking for The Sweetest Swing in Baseball does not open until 26 January 2004. Click here to vote in this year’s Awards.
- by Terri Paddock
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