Cast: Strausser Cat, Bush Seat, Southwark Faith
Full casting has been announced for Glen Walford‘s production of Frank Strausser‘s Park Avenue Cat at the Arts Theatre. Coronation Street star Gray O’Brien is joined in the cast by Tessa Peake-Jones, Josefina Gabrielle and Daniel Weyman for the production, which will open on 7 July (previews from 1 July) playing a limited season to 20 August 2011.
Tessa Peake-Jones is known to many for her role as Del Boy’s long-suffering wife Raquel in Only Fools and Horses. Her stage credits include the 2007 National Theatre production of The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder.
Two-time Olivier nominee Josefina Gabrielle has starred in numerous West End musicals including Oklahoma and, most recently, Sweet Charity. Daniel Weyman recently played the title
role in The Chichester Theatre production of Nicholas Nickelby. His stage credits also include The Comedy of Errors at Regent’s Park.
Receiving its London premiere at the Arts, Park Avenue Cat brings mistaken identity and the heady world of LA dating to a therapist’s couch. The play is directed by Glen Walford whose recent credits include the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of Shirley Valentine starring Whatsonstage.com Award winner Meera Syal, which transferred to the West End for an extended run at Trafalgar Studios.
Southwark Playhouse’s upcoming production of Faith, Hope and Charity has announced full casting, with a company that includes Rebecca Oldfield, Julien Ball, Paul Bhattacharjee, Emmanuella Cole, Helena Lymbery, Penelope McGhie, Jude Monk McGowan and Roy
Sampson.
Written by Odon von Horvath and translated by Christopher Hampton, the production is a portrait of pre-war Europe, a time when people were driven to desperate straits at a time of worldwide
recession. The first revival of Christopher Hampton‘s translation for more than a decade, the production is helmed by German director Leonie Kubigsteltig.
Rebecca Oldfield plays Elisabeth, the young woman at the centre of the story, valiantly struggling against the pettiness of the state. Oldfield was seen most recently in Charged at Soho Theatre as well as Nabokov productions When Cheryl Was Brassic, Is Everyone OK, and Present Tense.
Faith, Hope and Charity opens at Southwark Playhouse on 24 June (previews from 22 June) where it runs to 16 July. The production has design by Signe Beckmann, lighting by Richard Howell and sound by Tom Gibbons.
Full casting has been announced for Lou Ramsden’s darkly atmospheric new play Hundreds and Thousands which plays Upstairs at the Soho Theatre from 27 June (previews 21 June) to 16 July 2011. The cast have been announced as Stuart Laing, Sukie Smith, Lacey Turner and Robert Wilfort.
Lisa Spirling directs the play, which sees 44 Lorna desperate to start a family. After moving in with Allan, she soon discovers that life in his isolated farmhouse is far from the idyll she dreamed about. But is everything as it seems? As the true horror of Allan’s world is exposed, she must choose between doing what’s right or what’s right for her.
EastEnder Stuart Laing’s other television credits include How TV Ruined My Life, Trial and Retribution, Vincent and Cambridge Spies. His stage credits include The Furies/Land of the Dead at Greenwich Theatre, Blowing Whistles at Leicester Square Theatre, Drowning on Dry Land at Salisbury Playhouse and Season’s Greetings at Liverpool Everyman.
Sukie Smith’s theatre credits include Garage Band at Nottingham Playhouse, My Mother Said I Never Should for West Yorkshire Playhouse, A Girl in A Car with A Man at the Royal Court and The Things We Do For Love at Exeter Northcott. Her television and film credits include The Yellow House for Channel 4, Eastenders and My Hero for the BBC.
Lacey Turner is best known for playing Stacey Slater in BBC’s EastEnders. She was most recently seen in BBC Three’s live musical Frankenstein’s Wedding, which played to an audience of 12,000 people at Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds. Other television credits include The Worst Witch and Short Change. Her stage credits include Whistle Down the Wind at the Aldwych Theatre.
Robert Wilfort’s stage credits include Present Laughter for Theatre Clywd, The Jollies at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre and Sense and Sensibility at the Northcott. His television and film credits include Channel 4’s Campus, BBC drama Ashes to Ashes, Gavin and Stacey as well as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Libertine, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers and All or Nothing.
Ahead of the building’s inaugural season later this year, the Bush Theatre will “throw open the doors of the new venue” and invite the public to play a part in the transformation of the space, from library to theatre, in a production entitled Where’s My Seat?.
The production will give audiences the opportunity to “test drive” the new space by watching three short plays penned using stage directions by Alan Ayckbourn, Michael Grandage and outgoing Bush artistic director Josie Rourke. The directions themselves were inspired by nine props chosen by the National Theatre.
In the round, Ayckbourn’s directions will be teamed with playwright Tom Wells; the thrust stage pairs Deirdre Kinahan with Michael Grandage; and end on Jack Thorne will work with Josie Rourke.
Tamara Harvey directs Francesca Annis, Debbie Chazen, Richard Cordery, Hugo Speer, Hugh Skinner and Nina Sosanya across the three plays.
Making her Bush Theatre debut, Francesca Annis‘ credits include Time and Conways for the National Theatre, Afterplay at Sydney Festival, The Glass enagerie for Dublin’s Gate Theatre, Blood at the Royal Court, Hedda Gabler at Chichester and in the West End and Hamlet at the Almeida and on Broadway.
Debbie Chazen‘s recent theatre credits include Calendar Girls in the West End and on tour, The Girlfriend Experience at the Royal Court, Plymouth and Young Vic, Cinderella at the Old Vic, The Cherry Orchard for Sheffield Crucible, Dick Whittington at the Barbican and A Prayer for Owen Meaney and Mother Clapp’s Molly House at the National.
Richard Cordery‘s was last seen in the West End in Love Story at the Duchess Theatre. His other stage credits include The Power of Yes at the National, Spring Awakening at the Novello Theatre, Waste at the Almeida Theatre and extensive work for the RSC.
Returning to the Bush, where she appeared in Apologia Nina Sosanya‘s credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Novello Threatre, Love’s Labour’s Lost and
As You Like It for the RSC, Fix Up and House and Garden at the National, Almost
Nothing at the Royal Court, The Vortex for the Donmar and The Nativity at the Young Vic.
Hugh Skinner‘s theatre work includes The Great Game at the Tricycle Theatre, Angry Young Man at Trafalgar Studios and Senora Carrar’s Rifles for the Young Vic. Hugo Speer‘s theatre credits include Year of the Rat at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Betrayal in the West End and Design for Living Theatre Royal Bath.
Where’s My Seat? runs at the Bush Theatre from 15 June to 2 July.
