After Mountaintop, Harewood Scales NT Thebes

David Harewood, who played Martin Luther King in the recent Olivier Award-winning play The Mountaintop, will star as Theseus alongside Nikki Amuka-Bird‘s Eurydice in Richard Eyre‘s forthcoming production of Moira Buffini’s Welcome to Thebes at the National Theatre (See News, 21 Jan 2010).

The play, a contemporary reimagining of Greek mythology, opens on 22 June 2010 (previews from 15 June) in the NT Olivier as part of the venue’s £10 Travelex season.

According to the Daily Mail, the ensemble will also feature: Chuk Iwuji, Joy Richardson, Aicha Kossoko, Vinette Ronbinson, Tracy Ifeachor and Bruce Myers.

David Harewood was most recently seen on stage in The Mountaintop, Katori Hall’s two-hander which received a blaze of publicity when it upstaged Jerusalem and Enron in the Best New Play category at the Olivier Awards. He has also notched up many Shakespearean credits for the RSC, National and elsewhere while his many screen credits include the film Blood Diamond.

Nikki Amuka-Bird‘s is currently appearing in RSC production The Gods Weep at Hampstead Theatre. Her other recent theatre credits include Doubt (Tricycle), Twelfth Night (Bristol Old Vic), World Music (Donmar Warehouse); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest and The Servant of Two Masters (RSC). On screen she’s appeared in The Omen, Cargo and Anthony Minghella’s BBC adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s novel The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.