Theatre News

St James ties up Natalie Casey in the vibrator play, Out of Joint and Tall Stories

Sarah Ruhl’s ”In the Next Room or the vibrator play”, starring WhatsOnStage Award winner Natalie Casey, is next up in a St James season that also features a return of Out of Joint and Tall Stories, as well as the UK premiere of ”Urinetown”

Editorial Staff

| London |

1 November 2013

Natalie Casey stars in In the Next Room or the vibrator play
© Eric Richmond

Natalie Casey, who won Best Supporting Actress in a Play at this year’s WhatsOnStage Awards, lives up to the title in this beautifully corseted publicity photo for her new London stage role in Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or the vibrator play, which transfers this month to the St James Theatre, where it runs from 21 November 2013 to 4 January 2014 (previews from 13 November).

Ruhl’s play is set in the late 19th-century in New York State, where enthusiasm has been growing amongst the well-to-do for the new electric lightbulb. Dr Givings has been working on his own strange electrical device aimed at treating “female hysteria”. His first patient emerges from her first session ecstatic and keen to return for more treatment.

In the Next Room was Tony nominated for its 2009 Broadway premiere, and this production, directed by Laurence Boswell, won last year’s UK Theatre Award for Best New Play following its UK premiere at Theatre Royal Bath.

Natalie Casey scooped her 2013 WhatsOnStage Award for the Menier Chocolate Factory revival of Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party, which transferred to the West End. Her many other credits include musicals 9 to 5, Legally Blonde and Oklahoma on stage and, on television, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

Casey is joined in the vibrator cast by Madeline Appiah, Edward Bennett, Flora Montgomery, Owen Oakeshott, Sarah Woodward and, as Dr Givings, Jason Hughes.

In the Next Room is followed in St James new main house season by Tall Stories’ family Christmas show, The Snail and the Whale, adapted from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s award-winning children’s book, which runs from 10 December 2013 to 5 January 2014.

In the new year, as previously reported, Tony Award-winning musical satire Urinetown, directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring Jenna Russell and another previous WhatsOnStage Award winner, Richard Fleeshman, receives its UK premiere, running from 11 March to 3 May 2014 (previews from 11 February).

After Urinetown, Out of Joint will return to the theatre with This May Hurt a Bit, Stella Feehily‘s new play about the NHS. It’s directed by Out of Joint artistic director Max Stafford-Clark, who also helmed the company’s 25th anniversary production of Our Country’s Good, which featured last year in St James’ inaugural season. This May Hurt a Bit runs from 19 May to 21 June 2014 (previews from 12 May).