Cast: Eileen O'Brien & Joe McGann in Everyman's Hope Place

Michael Wynne’s new play Hope Place, specially commissioned for the opening season at the new Everyman Theatre features a host of well-known Liverpool actors, including Joe McGann and Eileen O’Brien and is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh.

A family gathers in their house on Hope Place following the death of their mother, but there is something up with eldest sister Maggie. Rattling around in the home she’s lived in all her life, she searches for the truth within a sea of family folklore. Hope Place is described as a story of myths, memories and family secrets.

Maggie is played by Eileen O'Brien who was last on the Everyman stage in Macbeth in 2011. Eileen played Rita in the Michael Wynne BBC TV show Being Eileen; her stage credits include Forget Me Not, Belvoir Theatre, Sydney and Everyman Unbound, Liverpool Everyman.

Playing Maggie’s brothers and sister are Joe McGann, Neil Caple and Tricia Kelly. Joe McGann’s stage credits include Lost Monsters at Liverpool Everyman and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Chichester Theatre. Neil Caple comes straight from Twelfth Night the opening production at the new Everyman and has also appeared in The Misanthrope at Liverpool Playhouse. Tricia Kelly last performed at the Everyman in Unprotected in 2006 her other stage credits include Cannibals, Royal Exchange Theatre.

The cast also includes Alan Stocks (Dead Heavy Fantastic and Twelfth Night, Liverpool Everyman), Michelle Butterly (Benidorm, ITV; Dead Heavy Fantastic, Liverpool Everyman), Ciaran Kellgren (The Heretic, Manchester Library Theatre; Shameless, Channel 4) and Emma Lisi (Alma Mater, Fish and Game; Book Ends, Bristol Old Vic).

Michael Wynne’s returns to the Everyman, where his first play The Knocky was performed in 1997. His stage writing credits include Canvas (Chichester Festival Theatre), and The Priory at the Royal Court, which won an Olivier award for Best New Comedy.

Director Rachel Kavanaugh was Artistic Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 2006 to 2010 where her credits included: Uncle Vanya, Martha, Murmuring Judges, The Absence Of War and A Doll’s House.

Hope Place is at the Liverpool Everyman from 9 – 31 May.