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Scream Campbell Makes West End Debut in Blues

Hollywood screen star Neve Campbell (pictured) will make her West End debut in Resurrection Blues, Arthur Miller’s second to last play, which receives its UK premiere at the Old Vic in the new year (See News, 8 Sep 2005). The production - directed by legendary filmmaker Robert Altman, who is also making his UK stage debut - opens on 22 February (previews from 14 February) for a limited season to 22 April 2006.

A satire of cultural commercialisation, global politics and media saturation, Miller’s play, which he was rewriting in the weeks before he died in February February (See News, 11 Feb 2005), is set in an unnamed South American country where a young rebel heralded as a messiah is gathering support from the downtrodden masses. When the government’s dictator captures the man and decides to crucify him, a New York-based TV company swoops in to vie for the broadcast rights.

Campbell is best known as the victimised Sidney Prescott in the Scream comedy horror series. Her other film credits include The Craft, Three to Tango, Churchill: The Hollywood Years, Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical and The Company, on which she worked with Altman.

In the Resurrection Blues ensemble, she’ll play Jeanine, the daughter of the dictator’s cousin who, having jumped out of a window, opens the show in a wheelchair. Further high-profile casting announcements for the production are expected imminently.

Resurrection Blues had its world premiere at Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater in 2002, but Miller continued to work on it, completing the revised version of the script just a month before his death. Prior to his death at the age of 89, Whatsonstage.com theatregoers voted Miller the world’s Greatest Living Playwright by Whatsonstage.com theatregoers. His seminal stage classics included Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, All My Sons, A View from the Bridge and The Price.

During a renowned film career spanning more than five decades, director Robert Altman’s many classics have included MASH, Brewster McCloud, Nashville, The Long Goodbye, The Player, Short Cuts, Prêt-à-Porter, Cookie’s Fortune and Gosford Park.

- by Terri Paddock

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