Ian Rickson's Royal Court Theatre production of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem will return to London's West End for a strictly limited 14 week engagement hot on the heels of a triumphant Broadway run. Mark Rylance will reprise his Olivier and Tony award-wining performance as Johnny "Rooster" Byron, directed by Ian Rickson. Previewing at the Apollo Theatre from 8 October 2011, with press night on 17 October, Jerusalem is booking until 14 January 2012. Designs are by Ultz, with lighting by Mimi Jordan Sherin, sound by Ian Dickinson for Autograph and music by Stephen Warbeck. Jerusalem is produced in the West End by Royal Court Theatre Productions and by Sonia Friedman Productions.
Jerusalem is a comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land. On St George's Day, the morning of the local county fair, Johnny Byron is a wanted man. The Council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants his dad to take him to the fair and Troy Whitworth wants to give him a serious kicking.
Jez Butterworth's award-winning play returns to the West End following record-breaking sold-out runs at the Royal Court and the
Apollo Theatres in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Jerusalem is currently enjoying a critically acclaimed extended run at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway where it plays until 21 August 2011. Jerusalem has now won over ten theatre awards internationally, culminating in the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Play going to
Mark Rylance earlier this year.
The 2011 West End cast includes
Mark Rylance (Johnny "Rooster" Byron) and
Mackenzie Crook (Ginger) as well as
Max Baker (Wesley),
Alan David (The Professor), Aimeé-Ffion Edwards (Phaedra),
Johnny Flynn (Lee),
Geraldine Hughes (Dawn),
Danny Kirrane (Davey),
Charlotte Mills (Tanya),
Sarah Moyle (Ms Fawcett) and
Harvey Robinson (Mr Parsons).
Jerusalem will offer 20 best price seats at £10 each, which will go on sale from the Box Office, in person only, from 10am on the day of each performance.
Multi award-winning actor
Mark Rylance was last in the West End playing Valere in La Bête at the Comedy Theatre, a role he reprised on Broadway. Before the West End run of Jerusalem at the
Apollo Theatre, he was recently on stage playing Hamm in
Samuel Beckett's Endgame at the Duchess Theatre and
Robert In Boeing-Boeing at the Comedy Theatre and on Broadway where he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. His other theatre work includes many productions for the
Royal Shakespeare Company,
The National Theatre and the Glasgow Citizens as well as True West for the
Donmar Warehouse, Bloody Poetry for the Royal Court and The Maids for Shared Experience and Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing directed by
Matthew Warchus, for which he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor. As Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre his work as an actor included the title roles in Henry V and Hamlet as well as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Olivia in Twelfth Night. His film and television work includes The Other Boleyn Girl, Prospero's Books, Angels and Insects, Leonardo and
David Kelly in C4's The Government Inspector for which he won the BAFTA Best Actor Award.
Jez Butterworth's first play Mojo opened at the Royal Court in 1995 and subsequently won five drama awards including the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Most Promising Playwright and the Olivier Award for Best Comedy. He returned to the Royal Court in 2002 with The Night Heron and The Winterling in 2006. His films Mojo, starring
Harold Pinter, and Birthday Girl, starring
Nicole Kidman, were both shown at the Venice Film Festival prior to general release. In 2007 he received the E.M. Forster Award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 his play Parlour Song received its British premiere at
The Almeida Theatre, directed by
Ian Rickson. 2010 saw the international release of his feature film Fair Game starring
Sean Penn and
Naomi Watts.
Ian Rickson's most recent West End credits include
Harold Pinter's Betrayal which completes its run at the Comedy Theatre on 20 August and
Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. He was Artistic Director of the Royal Court from 1998-2006 where his many productions included Krapp's Last Tape which he also directed for BBC4, Fallout which he also directed as a film for Channel 4 and The Weir and Mojo both of which transferred to the West End and Broadway. He has directed
Jez Butterworth's The Winterling, The Night Heron, Mojo and Parlour Song as well as Jerusalem. For
The National Theatre he has directed The Hothouse and The Day I Stood Still.
Photo Credit: Simon Annand
