Cast: Reiss’ Acid Test, Donmar Anna & Richard II
Casting has been announced for the Royal Court’s upcoming production of Anya Reiss‘ second play The Acid Test. Her new play, which follows the success of the award-winning Spur of the Moment, will star Phoebe Fox, Vanessa Kirby, Denis Lawson and Lydia Wilson.
Questioning whether age equals maturity The Acid Test tells the story of Dana, Ruth and Jess downing shots and emptying vodka bottles to console the heart-broken, to comfort the anxious and just pass the time. Kicked out from the family home Jess’s dad, Jim, invades the party with just as much recklessness as the girls. As the night passes, Friday night in becomes high drama.
Phoebe Fox‘s recent theatre credits include As You Like It for the Rose Theatre Kingston and A Month in the Country at Chichester Festival Theatre. She is joined in the cast by Vanessa Kirby‘s theatre credits include As You Like It at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Women Beware Women at the National Theatre and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ghosts and All My Sons at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton.
Denis Lawson is best known for playing Tom Campbell-Gore in the BBC medical drama Holby City. He has been seen in the West End in productions including La Cage aux Folles, Oleanna and Lust. His other credits include Bleak House, the Star Wars trilogy, Local Hero and The Man in the Iron Mask. Lydia Wilson last appeared at the Royal Court as Phoebe in The Heretic. Her recent credits include Blasted at the Lyric Hammersmith, Pains of Youth at the National and House of Special Purpose at Chichester as well as an appearance in the BBC’s Any Human Heart.
The Acid Test is designed by Paul Wills, with lighting by Malcolm Rippeth and sound by Nick Manning. It is part of the Royal Court’s Jerwood New Playwrights programme.
Jenny Galloway and David Hayman have joined the cast of Rob Ashford’s forthcoming production of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie, which runs at the Donmar Warehouse from 9 August to 8 October 2011 (previews from 4 August).
As previously announced, Ruth Wilson will play the title role alongside Jude Law as Anna’s lover Mat Burke.
In O’Neill’s 1921 Broadway play, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, former prostitute Anna, who was exiled from her home as a child, is reunited with the father who sent her away 15 years earlier and sets sail in search of a new beginning.
Jenny Galloway, who will play fishwife Marthy Owens, has extensive West End credits including Show Boat, Mary Poppins, My One and Only, Les Miserables, Oliver! and Mamma Mia!, for which she won an Olivier Award. Recently, she reprised her role as Madame Thénardier in Les Miserables for the show’s 25th anniversary concert at the O2 Arena.
David Hayman, who plays Anna’s estranged father Chris Christopherson, has starred in myriad films and TV dramas including The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas, The Tailor of Panama, Ordinary Decent Criminal and Trial and Retribution.
Also at the Donmar, Andrew Buchan has joined the cast of Richard II, Michael Grandage’s final production as artistic director, opposite Eddie Redmayne in the title role.
Buchan, who plays Bolingbroke, previously appeared at the Donmar in 2008 in Arthur Miller’s The Man Who Had All the Luck. His screen credits include The Fixer and the John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy.
Richard II, which runs from 6 December 2011 to 4 February 2012 (previews from 1 December), reunites Grandage and Redmayne following the 2009 production of John Logan’s Red, which won six Tony Awards when it transferred to Broadway last year.
