Full Cast Set For Wise Children's New Co-Production of BLUE BEARD
The tour kicks off at Bath Theatre Royal in February.
By: Stephi Wild Nov. 24, 2023
The artistic Director of Wise Children, Emma Rice has announced the full cast for the world première of Blue Beard. Written and directed by Rice, the cast includes Isabel Adomakoh Young, Stu Barker, Mirabelle Gremaud, Stephanie Hockley, Patrycja Kujawska, Adam Mirsky, Katy Owen, and Tristan Sturrock.
Blue Beard, a co-production with Birmingham Rep, HOME Manchester, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and York Theatre Royal opens at Theatre Royal Bath on 8 February, with previews from 2nd, and runs until 10 February, before embarking on a UK tour to venues including the partner theatres.
Further creatives joining the team include: Stu Barker (Composer), Vicki Mortimer (Set and Costume designer), Simon Baker (Sound and Video designer), Malcolm Rippeth (Lighting Designer), Etta Murfitt (Movement Director and Choreographer) and Ian Ross (Musical Supervisor and Arranger).
Blue Beard the Magician makes hearts flutter and pupils dilate. With a wink, a stroke and a flick - things just seem to vanish. Cards, coins, scarves… and women.
Puff! Gone. Without a trace.
He meets his match when his young bride discovers his dark and murderous secret. She summons all her rage, all her smarts and all her sisters to bring the curtain down on his tyrannous reign.
Emma Rice brings her own brand of theatrical wonder to this most beguiling and disturbing of tales. With her signature sleight of hand, Blue Beard explores curiosity and consent, violence and vengeance - all through an intoxicating lens of music, wit and tender truth.
When someone tells you not to look, OPEN THE BLOODY DOOR!
Isabel Adomakoh Young's theatre work includes As You Like It (Shakespeare's Globe), Modest (UK tour and Kiln Theatre), Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic), Living Newspaper Edition 3 (Royal Court Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre), Dear Elizabeth (Gate Theatre), Meatballs (Hampstead Theatre), The Provoked Wife, Venice Preserved (RSC), To Kill a Mockingbird (Lyric Hammersmith), Consensus, Victoria's Knickers (Soho Theatre), Macbeth (NYT at Garrick Theatre), Bite Your Tongue (Hackney Showroom), Blood (Arcola) and Lionboy (Complicité). For television, her work includes Heartstoppers and Foundation.
Stu Barker returns to work with the company after his work on Wise Children (The Old Vic). He also worked extensively as composer/musical director with Kneehigh Theatre (1999-2016). His other work as composer/musical director includes Brief Encounter (Broadway / West End), A Matter Of Life And Death / Tristan And Yseult (National Theatre), Cymbeline / Don John, The Empress (RSC), A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare's Globe), 946-The Amazing Story Of Adolphous Tips (Kneehigh), Hansel And Gretel (Bristol Old Vic), The Bacchae / The Wooden Frock (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Nights at The Circus, The Red Shoes (Lyric Hammersmith), The Wild Bride, Rapunzel, Midnight Pumpkin (BAC), and Pandora's Box (Northern Stage), as well as work on The Grinning Man (West End), Pippi Longstocking (Royal & Derngate), and with The Donmar Warehouse, Bristol Old Vic, Welfare State International, Contact Theatre, Horse And Bamboo, Liverpool Lantern Company, And Now, and Travelling Light. For television, his work includes The Cult of The Suicide Bomber, and Beyond Grief.
Mirabelle Gremaud returns to the company, having previously appeared in Wise Children (The Old Vic/UK tour), Malory Towers (Bristol Passenger Shed/UK tour), and Wuthering Heights (Bristol Old Vic, National theatre and UK tour). Her theatre credits as an actress/dancer and contortionist include Le Conte des Contes (Théâtre Kléber-Mélau), Peter Pan (Birmingham Rep), Swan Lake (The Lost Estate), Acrojou (Roundhouse), Falling (Complicité), and her solo show Sombre Sloughing (UK and European tour).
Stephanie Hockley returns to the company – she previously appeared in Wuthering Heights (UK and US tour) and Malory Towers. Her other theatre credits include Robin Hood (Watermill Theatre), A Christmas Carol (Storyhouse), The Show Must Go On (St Luke's Bombed Out Church), Return to the Forbidden Planet (Upstairs at the Gatehouse), Robin Hood the Rock n' Roll Panto, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel (Liverpool Everyman), Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Storyhouse, Chester) and Sleeping Beauty (Mercury Theatre Colchester).
Patrycja Kujawska returns to the company, having previously appeared in Bagdad Cafe (The Old Vic), and Wise Children (The Old Vic/Wise Children). Her other theatre credits include Cyrano, The Grinning Man (Bristol Old Vic), The Tin Drum, Midnight's Pumpkin, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips (Kneehigh), The Red Shoes, The Wild Bride, Tristan and Yseult (Kneehigh Theatre Company, UK/US tour), Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and Other Love Songs) (Kneehigh/UK tour/Shanghai tour), Don John (RSC), Drop Dead Gorgeous, Let The Mountains Lead You To Love, Punch Drunk, Fairy Tale, Test Run, If We Go On, Underworld (Vincent Dance Theatre), and Broken Chords, and Motherland (Vincent Dance Theatre UK/US tour)
Adam Mirsky's theatre credits include Town Planning in the Apocalypse, Handel and Hendrix (NYT), Scratch (Izzy Parriss Productions), Emile & Emily (Tightrope Theatre), Imaginary Natural Beings (Vaults), Maklena (Night Train Theatre), Mojave (Citizens Band Radio), Walk Swiftly and with Purpose (Three Sisters), Coriolanus (Corpus Playroom), Romeo and Juliet (Cambridge Arts Theatre), and Boys, and Little Shop of Horrors (ADC Theatre). For television, his work includes Endeavour.
Katy Owen returns to the company - she previously appeared in Wise Children (The Old Vic/UK tour), and Wuthering Heights (Bristol Old Vic, National theatre and UK / US tour). Her other theatre credits include UBU Karaoke!, Rebecca (Kneehigh), The Little Matchgirl and Other Happier Tales (Bristol Old Vic/Shakespeare's Globe/UK tour), Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe), 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tipps (Kneehigh/ Shakespeare's Globe/UK tour), The World of Work, The Night Before Christmas (Chapter Arts Centre), Apparitions of Spirits with the Forsythe Sisters (Gaggle Babble), Maudie's Rooms, Plum - and Me, Will!, Cinders (Sherman Theatre), Ill Met by Moonlight (Wales Millennium Centre), The Tempest (Theatr Iolo) and The Moon Dragon & The Wounded Angel (Theatr Gwent). Her television credits include The Story of Tracy Beaker; and for film, Cyrano and Daddy's Girl.
Tristan Sturrock's theatre credits include The Meaning of Zong (Bristol Old Vic at the Barbican), The Nutcracker, Cyrano, Messiah, Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Coram Boy, Treasure Island, Juliet and Her Romeo, Faraway, The Beaux Stratagem (Bristol Old Vic), Rebecca, Danger My Alley, The Young Man of Currie (Kneehigh), 101 Dalmatians (Tobacco Factory), The Little Table of Delights, Frankenspine (Theatre Damfino), Mayday Mayday (Theatre Damfino and St Ann's Warehouse), Brief Encounter (Kneehigh, West End and Broadway), A Matter of Life and Death, Salome (Kneehigh, National Theatre), Tristan and Yseult (National Theatre, Sydney, US), Edward II, Blue Remembered Hills (Sheffield Theatres), As You Like It (Royal Exchange Theatre), Jerusalem Syndrome, The Station (Soho Theatre), The Mysteries, Spanish Tragedy (RSC), and King of Prussia (Kneehigh/Donmar Warehouse). For television, his work includes Truelove, The Marlow Murder Club, The Tower, Malpractice, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, The Outlaws, Poldark, Death in Paradise, The Interrogation, Strike Back, The Crown, Three Girls, Doc Martin, Jamaica Inn, The Borgias, The Best of Men, The Queen, Garrow's Law, Bad Girls, Bodily Harm, The Project, Menace, Rescue Me, and The New Adventures of Robin Hood; and for film, Long Way Back, My Policeman, Bait, Christopher Robin, and Saving Grace.
Emma Rice is the proud and excited Artistic Director of her company, Wise Children. She adapted and directed the company's The Little Matchgirl (and Other Happier Tales) (The Lucky Chance), Wuthering Heights (UK and US tour), Bagdad Cafe (The Old Vic), Angela Carter's Wise Children (The Old Vic/UK tour) and Enid Blyton's Malory Towers (Bristol Passenger Shed/UK tour). As Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe (2016/18), she directed Romantics Anonymous, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Little Matchgirl (and Other Happier Tales). For the previous 20 years, she worked for Kneehigh as an actor, director and Artistic Director. Productions included The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Tristan & Yseult, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, The Wild Bride, The Red Shoes, The Wooden Frock, The Bacchae, Cymbeline (in association with RSC), A Matter of Life and Death (in association with National Theatre), Rapunzel (in association with Battersea Arts Centre), Brief Encounter (in association with David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers Productions), Don John (in association with the RSC and Bristol Old Vic), Wah! Wah! Girls (in association with Sadler's Wells and Theatre Royal Stratford East for World Stages), and Steptoe and Son. Other work includes the West End production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Oedipussy (Spymonkey), The Empress (RSC), and An Audience with Meow Meow (Berkeley Repertory Theatre). In 2019 Rice received the UK Theatre Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre.
This production is supported by Cockayne - Grants for the Arts and The London Community Foundation.
Tour Dates
Bath Theatre Royal:
2 – 10 February
Press night: 8 February
Box Office: 01225 448844
Manchester HOME
13 – 24 February
Box Office 0161 200 1500
York Theatre Royal
27 February – 9 March
Box Office: 01904 623 568
The Lyceum Edinburgh
12 – 30 March
Box Office: 0131 248 4848
Birmingham Rep
9 – 20 April
Box Office: 0121 236 4455
23 April – 18 May
Box Office: 020 7223 2223
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