Lisa Palfry (Big Mama), Hayley Squires (Mae) and Brian Gleeson (Gooper) with Richard Hansel (Doctor) and Michael J Shannon (Reverend) join the previously announced Sienna Miller (Maggie), Jack O’Connell (Brick) and Colm Meaney (Big Daddy) for the Young Vic production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof directed by Benedict Andrews. The younger members of the Company will be announced at a later date.
The twelve-week run in the West End at the Apollo Theatre begins previews on 13 July 2017 with press night on 24 July. The last performance is 7 October 2017. Set designs are by Magda Willi with costume designs by Alice Babidge, lighting by Jon Clark and sound design by Gareth Fry. Music is by award-wining composer and musician Jed Kurzel.
The truth hurts. On a steamy night in Mississippi, a Southern family gather at their cotton plantation to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. The scorching heat is almost as oppressive as the lies they tell. Brick and Maggie dance round the secrets and sexual tensions that threaten to destroy their marriage. With the future of the family at stake, which version of the truth is real – and which will win out?
Lisa Palfrey’s theatre credits include Junkyard for Headlong, Much Ado About Nothing for Theatre Clwyd, The Seagull for Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, The Kitchen Sink for the Bush Theatre, Red Bud, Ingredient X and Under The Blue Sky all for the Royal Court Theatre, Festen and The Iceman Cometh both for the Almeida Theatre and Cardiff East and Under Milk Wood both for the National Theatre. Her film credits include Pride, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, House of America, Under Milk Wood and Guest House Paradiso. Her television credits include Hinterland, The Line of Duty, Green Hollow, Casualty, and Family Tree.
Hayley Squires’ theatre credits include The Pitchfork Disney at Shoreditch Town Hall and As Good a Time as Any at The Print Room. For the role of Katie in Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winning I, Daniel Blake she won the British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer, the Evening Standard British Film award for Best Supporting Actress and also received a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her other credits include Giantland, Away, Polar Bear, A Royal Night Out and Blood Cells. Her television credits include The Miniaturist, Collateral, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, The Commuter, Murder, Southcliffe, Complicit and Call The Midwife.
Brian Gleeson was most recently seen on stage in The Weir at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. His other theatre credits include The Walworth Farce at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin and the Donmar Warehouse production of The Night Alive, which also ran at the Atlantic Theatre in New York. His film credits include Assassin’s Creed, The Flag, Tiger Raid, History’s Future, Standby, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Stay, Snow White and The Huntsman. His television work includes the lead role of Jimmy Mahon in the RTÉ series Rebellion, Quirke and Stonemouth. His film work due for release this year includes Steven Soderbergh’s feature film Logan Lucky, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread.
Richard Hansell’s more recent theatre credits include Lazarus at the King’s Cross Theatre, the Young Vic’s production of A View From the Bridge which transferred to the West End and then to Broadway and Macbeth at the Trafalgar Studios. His other theatre credits include Tonight at 8.30 for Chichester Festival Theatre, The Madness of King George III at the Apollo Theatre, The Bridge Project at the Old Vic and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Troilus and Cressida for Shakespeare’s Globe, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, School for Scandal and Hamlet all for English Touring Theatre and A Patriot For Me and Two Gentlemen of Verona for the Royal Shakespeare Company. His television credits include And Then There Were None, Downton Abbey, Spooks, The Royal, Miracle Landing on The Hudson and E=MC2, and on film his credits include Shine, The Wolfman and Hamlet.
Michael J Shannon’s theatre credits include The Dining Room and The Glass Menagerie, both at Greenwich Theatre, Artichoke for the Tricycle Theatre, Totally Foxed at the Theatre Royal Bath, The Price at the Leicester Haymarket, The End of the World at Nuffield, Southampton, A Thousand Clowns at the Palace, Watford and A Delicate Balance at the Nottingham Playhouse. His television credits include We’ll Meet Again, Boston Legal and Brothers & Sisters.
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
13 July – 7 October 2017
Apollo Theatre
31 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 7ES
Performances: Monday – Saturday at 7.30pm, Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
£10 GOOD SEATS FOR 25S & UNDER FOR EACH PERFORMANCE
75 TICKETS AT £20 OR LESS FOR EVERY PERFORMANCE
Sienna Miller and Jack O’Connell will lead the cast as Maggie and Brick in Benedict Andrews’ Young Vic production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof which will begin previews in the West End at the Apollo Theatre on 13 July 2017. This strictly limited twelve-week run is booking to 7 October 2017. Set designs are by Magda Willi with costume designs by Alice Babidge and lighting by Jon Clark. Further casting will be announced at a later date.
Tickets go on public sale 24 February 2017, at 10am. For this Young Vic production, there will be seats available at £10 for under 25s for each performance, booked through the Young Vic Box Office, with 75 tickets at £20 or less for every performance.
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof marks the Young Vic’s first production to debut directly in the West End and is presented by the Young Vic and The Young Ones. Previously the Young Vic have transferred A View from a Bridge, Golem, The Scottsboro Boys, Simply Heavenly, Tintin and A Doll’s House.
The truth hurts. On a steamy night in Mississippi, a Southern family gather at their cotton plantation to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. The scorching heat is almost as oppressive as the lies they tell. Brick and Maggie dance round the secrets and sexual tensions that threaten to destroy their marriage. With the future of the family at stake, which version of the truth is real – and which will win out?
Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer prize winning play received its world premiere in 1955 at the Morosco Theater on Broadway with Barbara Bel Geddes and Ben Gazzara as Maggie and Brick. The UK premiere, directed by Peter Hall, opened at the Comedy Theatre in 1958 with Kim Stanley and Paul Massie in the same roles. The 1958 Academy Award nominated film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman was directed by Richard Brooks.
Sienna Miller (Maggie) trained at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York. She was last on stage in the West End as Patricia in Flare Path at the Haymarket Theatre and was previously seen at Wyndham’s Theatre as Celia in As You Like It. Her New York theatre credits include After Miss Julie, Cabaret, Independence and Cigarettes and Chocolate. Her many film credits include Live by Night, Mississippi Grind, Layer Cake, Alfie, Casanova, Factory Girl, American Sniper, Foxcatcher, The Edge of Love, G.I. Joe, Yellow and the forthcoming The Lost City of Z. On television her credits include The Girl, Bedtime and Keen Eddie.
Jack O’Connell (Brick) was last seen on stage in The Nap at Sheffield Crucible Theatre. His other theatre credits include Scarborough for the Royal Court and The Spiderman, The Musicians and Just for NT Shell Connections. His film work has garnered him multiple awards, including the 2015 EE BAFTA Rising Star Award, the New Hollywood Award and the Chopard Trophy Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Most recently, his project Home won the BAFTA for British Short Film in 2017. His other film credits include Money Monster, 300: Rise of an Empire, Unbroken, ’71, Starred Up, Liability, Private Peaceful, Tower Block, Weekender, Wayfaring Stranger, Eden Lake and Black Dog. O’Connell will next be seen on screen in Tulip Fever, The Man with the Iron Heart as well as starring in the Netflix TV series Godless. His television credits include Skins, United, The Runaway, This is England, Dive and Wuthering Heights.
For the Young Vic, Benedict Andrews has previously directed his own version of Three Sisters, which won the London Critics’ Circle Best Director Award, and A Streetcar Named Desire, with Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster, which transferred to New York in 2016. His first production for the Young Vic was Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses, a co-production with ENO – where he has also directed La Boheme and Detlev Glanert’s Caligula. His many directing credits for Sydney Theatre Company include The Maids with Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert, which toured to the Lincoln Centre Festival in New York; and Big and Small which came to the Barbican, also starring Cate Blanchett. Andrews has also worked extensively at the Schaubühne Berlin, Komische Oper, National Theatre Iceland and Belvoir Street Sydney. His first feature film, Una, starring Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn, premiered at the 2016 Telluride Film Festival and will be released later this year.
The Young Vic, one of the UK’s leading theatres, produces new plays, classics, forgotten works, musicals and opera. It co-produces and tours widely in the UK and internationally while keeping deep roots in its neighbourhood. It frequently transfers shows to London’s West End and invites local people to take part at its home in Waterloo. In 2016 the Young Vic became London’s first Theatre of Sanctuary. Recent productions include Simon Stone’s new version of Lorca’s Yerma which returns to the Young Vic with Billie Piper reprising her multi award-wining performance in July, the premiere of Charlene James’ multi-award-winning play Cuttin’ It and Ivo van Hove’s production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge (West End & Broadway transfers), as well as Horizons, a season of work exploring the lives of refugees. David Lan is Artistic Director with Lucy Woollatt as Executive Director.
