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The Young Vic's KAFKA'S MONKEY Begins April 3

By: Mar. 15, 2013
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Theatre for a New Audience in association with Baryshnikov Arts Center, present Kathryn Hunter in the New York premiere of Kafka's Monkey, based on A Report to an Academy by Franz Kafka adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann, for an18-performance run thru Wednesday, April 17.

In the New York Premiere of this savagely funny and poignant production Kathryn Hunter (Olivier Award winner, Complicité founding member) plays a reluctantly civilized ape who, dressed in white tie, tails and a bowler hat, addresses a group of distinguished scientists who have asked to hear about "his" prior life.

The set for Kafka's Money is by Steffi Wurster, costume by Richard Hudson, and lighting by Mike Gunning. The composer and sound designer is Nikola Kodjabashia. Movement is by Ilan Reichel. Dance is by Temujin Gill.

Colin Teevan is a playwright, screenwriter and translator. Most recent original stageworks include: The Kingdom, There Was A Man, There Was No Man, The Lion of Kabul (part of the Great Game Season), How Many Miles to Basra? (winner of 2007 Clarion Award for Best New Play), The Bee and The Diver; both co-written with Hideki Noda, Missing Persons; Four Tragedies and Roy Keane, Monkey!, The Walls and Alcmaeon in Corinth. Adaptations include Kafka's Monkey, Peer Gynt,Don Quixote with Pablo Ley and Svejk, which was produced in New York by Theatre for a New Audience. Translations include: Euripides' Bacchai and Manfridi'sCuckoos both directed by Sir Peter Hall; Marathon by Edoardo Erba and Iph. . .after Euripides. Mr. Teevan has written television dramas for BBC, ITV and RTE and has also written plays for BBC Radio. He is currently senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London where he founded and is programme director of the BA in Creative Writing. All his work is published by Oberon Books.

Walter Meierjohann is an Associate Artist of the Young Vic and Artistic Director of Theatre at HOME Manchester. His theatre credits include Unleashed(Barbican); The Ballad of the Sad Café (Residenztheater Munich); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Liverpool Playhouse, Nottingham Playhouse); In the Red and Brown Water (Young Vic); All My Sons (Leicester Curve); The Messiah; Long Day's Journey into Night; Inkheart (State Theatre of Dresden); Mary Stuart (Luebeck);Death of a Salesman (Mainz); devised commissions in the Sophiensaele and Maxim Gorki Theatre, Berlin. The Just by Camus (Impulse-Festival, Germany). He has written and directed a short film Dear Anna, starring Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni.

Kathryn Hunter, New York-born, London-raised, read French and Drama at Bristol University and went on to train at Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts with the inspirational Hugh Crutwell.

Ms. Hunter played Alan Ayckbourn farces in UK Rep before joining Chattie Salaman in Common Stock and training in Grotowski based techniques. She joined Théâtre de Complicité devising: Anything for a Quiet Life directed by Simon McBurney, Help I am Alive, a Commedia dell'Arte creation, and Out of a House Walked a Man, Royal National Theatre London.
Other productions with Complicité include: Foe, The Winter's Tale and Durenmatt's The Visit playing Clara Zachanassian (Olivier Award Best Actress)

Favorite productions include King Lear directed by Helena Kaut Howsen, Richard III at Shakespeare's Globe, Caryl Churchill's Faraway directed by Peter Brook at Bouffes du Nord and The Skriker at the Royal National Theatre (Time Out Best Actress and Olivier nomination), Mr Ido in the Bee directed Hideki Noda, SpoonfaceSteinberg by Lee Hall, directed by Annie Castledine and Marcello Magni, Ambassadors London West End.

Films include Orlando by Sally Potter, All or Nothing by Mike Leigh, Baby of Macon by Peter Greenway and Mrs Figg in Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, Charmian in Rome for HBO.

Most recently she was Cleopatra for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Red Peter in Kafka's Monkey for Young Vic, London and Bouffes du Nord, Paris directed by Walter Meierjohann. She is a big fan of Sally Potter with whom she collaborated on Orlando and Mike Leigh on All or Nothing.




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