Zoe Wanamaker in NT Orchard, New Live Number

Following her current acclaimed West End turn in All My Sons, Zoe Wanamaker will reunite with director Howard Davies back at the National Theatre to star as Madame Ranevskaya in a new production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Full dates have not yet been confirmed, but the production will run in the NT Olivier as part of the 2011 Travelex £10 Tickets season.
Chekhov’s 1904 Russian classic was last staged at the National in 2000, opening in the NT Cottesloe before transferring to the larger Olivier. It was directed by then NT artistic director Trevor Nunn and starred Vanessa Redgrave and her brother Corin Redgrave, who died in April of this year. Last summer, the play was also revived at the Old Vic – with a cast including Simon Russell Beale, Rebecca Hall and Ethan Hawke – as part of Sam Mendes’ transatlantic Bridge Project.

In The Cherry Orchard, Madame Ranevskaya returns from Paris as the family estate, including her beloved orchard, is about to be sold to pay off mounting debts. Revelling in past glories and extravagances, the family ignores all offers for help.

Zoe Wanamaker’s myriad stage credits include, for the National Theatre, Much Ado About Nothing, His Girl Friday, Battle Royal, The Crucible and The Rose Tattoo. Her other theatre work includes Electra (Donmar and New York), for which she won the Best Actress Olivier, and on Broadway, Awake and Sing!, for which she was Tony-nominated. Her screen credits include My Family, Gormenghast, Doctor Who and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

The National’s new production of The Cherry Orchard will be broadcast to cinema screens around the UK and the world as part of the continuing NT Live initiative.

Other dates now confirmed for the second season of NT Live are: Hamlet, starring Rory Kinnear and directed by Nicholas Hytner, broadcast on 9 December 2010; the Broadway musical transfer of Fela! on 13 January 2011; Danny Boyle’s stage adaptation of Frankenstein on 17 March 2011; followed by The Cherry Orchard.

In addition, for the first time, NT Live will collaborate with another company outside of London for the first time, broadcasting a special performance of Complicite’s multi award-winning play A Disappearing Number, which, for one night only on 14 October 2010, will be staged at and transmitted from Theatre Royal Plymouth, where it started life in March 2007 prior to two London seasons at the Barbican and ongoing international dates.

All NT Live performances are filmed live in high definition and broadcast via satellite to participating cinemas – the number which has grown from an initial 150 to more than 320 now in the US as well as the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Scandinavia and Europe. NT Live is funded in partnership with Arts Council England and NESTA and supported internationally by Travelex.