Cast: Scholey in Richard, Root’s Sea, Full Butley
Further casting has been announced for Sam Mendes‘ forthcoming Old Vic production of Richard III, starring Kevin Spacey in the title role.
Other casting includes NT and RSC regular Chuk Iwuji as Buckingham, and American actor Chandler Williams in the ensemble. Full casting will be announced soon.
The production, which runs as part of the transatlantic Bridge Project, opens on 29 June (previews from 18 June) and continues until 11 September 2011 prior to its transfer to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Richard III reunites Kevin Spacey and Sam Mendes as actor and director for the first time since Mendes famously directed Spacey in 1999 film American Beauty, for which they both won Oscars.
Amanda Root, who appeared in the Old Vic’s acclaimed 2008 production of Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests, will star as Hester Collyer in Philip Franks’ Chichester Festival Theatre revival of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea, which opens on 25 July 2011 (previews from 13 July).
The 1952 play centres on Hester, who is torn between her passionate love for a younger man and the security of a safe marriage. Considered one of the most challenging roles for an actress, Hester has been played in recent productions by Harriet Walter, Penelope Wilton and, in the West End in 2008, Greta Scacchi.
Root is an accomplished performer on stage and screen, who rose to prominence at the Royal Shakespeare Company and in a variety of TV series including Persuasion, Jane Eyre and All About Me.
The Deep Blue Sea is one of a number of Rattigan plays being revived this year to mark the playwright’s centenary, including the Old Vic’s Cause Celebre which opens next week (29 March 2011, previews from 17 March) starring Anne-Marie Duff.
Full casting has been announced for the West End revival of Simon Gray‘s Butley, with Amanda Drew and Martin Hutson joining the previously announced Dominic West, Penny Downie and Paul McGann.
Butley follows Sign of the Times and the short run of Hampstead Theatre transfer Ecstasy into the Duchess Theatre, opening on 6 June (previews from 1 June 2011).
Drew’s recent stage credits include Peter Hall‘s National Theatre production of Twelfth Night, House Of Games and Parlour Song for the Almeida, The Ugly One and Faces In the Crowd at the Royal Court, and Enron at both the Royal Court and in the West End. She also also appeared in the 2005 Criterion Theatre production of Gray’s Otherwise Engaged.
Martin Hutson‘s stage credits include Anthony and Cleopatra at Liverpool Playhouse, Taking Sides / Collaboration at Chichester and in the West End, the National’s production of The Voysey Inheritance, The Comedy of Errors at Sheffield and the RSC’s As You Like It and the West End revival of Ghosts.
Cai Brigden and Emma Hiddleston have also been announced as cast for the production, which is directed by Lindsey Posner.
The 1971 play centres on a rapier-tongued lecturer trying to cope with the strains of divorce and academia. West takes the lead in what is described in marketing material as a “razor sharp and darkly comic assault on the soft underbelly of academia”.
