West End's THE FERRYMAN Will Transfer to Broadway This Fall

Sonia Friedman Productions and Neal Street Productions will transfer Jez Butterworth's The Ferryman, directed by Sam Mendes, to Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre (242 W. 45th Street, New York) in October 2018.

Developed by Sonia Friedman Productions and produced with Neal Street Productions and The Royal Court Theatre, The Ferryman opened at The Royal Court Theatre in May 2017 to huge critical acclaim. The sold-out transfer to the Gielgud Theatre in London's West End will end its twice-extended, year-long run on May 19, 2018 following 410 performances, prior to opening on Broadway in the fall.

Tickets for the Broadway transfer of The Ferryman will go on sale March 5 through Telecharge.com.

Full production schedule and the 30-plus member cast for The Ferryman will be announced at a later date.

Winner of the Evening Standard Awards for Best Play and Best Director, The Ferryman was also chosen recently as the Best New Play at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards in London.

Jez Butterworth, whose plays include Jerusalem, Mojo and The River, previously collaborated with Sam Mendes on the scripts for Spectre and Skyfall from the James Bond franchise. Sam Mendes' New York stage productions include Cabaret and The Blue Room on Broadway, and Richard III, As You Like It, The Tempest, The Cherry Orchard and The Winter's Tale as part of the Bridge Project at BAM.

The Ferryman is set in rural Northern Ireland in 1981. The Carney farmhouse is a hive of activity with preparations for the annual harvest. A day of hard work on the land and a traditional night of feasting and celebrations lie ahead. But this year they will be interrupted by a visitor.

The Ferryman is designed by Rob Howell, with lighting by Peter Mumford, and sound and original music by Nick Powell. The associate director is Tim Hoare and UK casting is by Amy Ball CDG. Other members of the Broadway creative team will be announced shortly.

The Ferryman was originally produced at The Royal Court Theatre, followed by an immediate transfer to the Gielgud Theatre, by Sonia Friedman Productions, Neal Street Productions & Royal Court Theatre Productions with Rupert Gavin, Gavin Kalin Productions, Ron Kastner and Tulchin Bartner Productions.

Jez Butterworth (Playwright) was born in London in 1969. His first play, Mojo (Royal Court Theatre, 1995), won seven major awards, including the Olivier for Best Comedy. Other plays for the Court include The Night Heron (2002), The Winterling (2009), and Jerusalem (2009). Jerusalem transferred to the West End, breaking box office records for a new play. It won Best Play at the Evening Standard Awards 2010, The UK Critic's Circle Award for Best Play 2010, before traveling to Broadway where it won Best Foreign Play, at the 2011 New York Critics Circle Awards, and received six Tony nominations, winning two, including Best Actor for Mark Rylance. The River (Royal Court, 2012), transferred to Broadway in 2014, starring Hugh Jackman. Other plays include Parlour Song (Atlantic Theatre, 2008/Almeida Theatre, 2009).

Butterworth's sixth play for the Royal Court, The Ferryman, directed by Sam Mendes, is currently on stage in the West End in London. It received 24 five-star reviews in the UK press, and won Best Play and Best Director at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards in 2017, and the Critics Circle Theatre Award for Best Play.

His screenwriting credits include Fair Game (winner of the Paul Selvin Award, 2010), Get On Up (2014), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Black Mass (2015), and Spectre (2015). In 2007, Butterworth won the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Sam Mendes (Director) is a prolific and multi award-winning theatre and film director and producer, who has directed many productions in New York and on Broadway including Cabaret and The Blue Room. Mendes became the first Artistic Director of the Minerva Theatre, Chichester and founded The Donmar Warehouse in the West End, where over ten years as Artistic Director his seminal productions included Assassins, Cabaret, Translations, Company, The Glass Menagerie, Habeas Corpus, The Blue Room, Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night.

More widely, Mendes has also directed a number of critically acclaimed productions at the RSC (Troilus and Cressida, The Alchemist, The Tempest), National Theatre (The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, The Birthday Party, The Sea, Othello, King Lear), and in the West End (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Oliver!). In 2003 he co-founded Neal Street Productions and in 2009 he set up the Bridge Project, the first transatlantic classical theatre partnership, between the Old Vic Theatre and BAM, directing Richard III, As You Like It, The Tempest, The Cherry Orchard and The Winter's Tale.

He won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Director and Best Picture as well as the Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for his first film, American Beauty. He has since directed the Academy Award-winning Road to Perdition, Revolutionary Road, Away We Go, and the Academy Award and BAFTA winning Skyfall and most recently Spectre from the James Bond franchise. He received the Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Photo: Rosalie Craig and Owen McDonnell in the current cast of The Ferryman. Credit Johan Persson