Casting Announced For Channel 4 Playwrights Scheme Bursary Winning New Play

"I want to be rich. I was always fighting against it, like it was a dirty secret or something.
And now I've got it, I can have whatever I want. I don't have to worry about anything.
I don't have to care about anything. I don't even have to pretend I care."

In a new production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre and originally seen as a staged reading as part of Vibrant 2015 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, the world premiere of Dubailand by Carmen Nasr runs at the Finborough Theatre, playing nine Sunday and Monday evenings and Tuesday matinees from Sunday, 5 February 2017.

An oasis of free enterprise, no income taxes, no unions, no opposition parties. A paradise of consumption. A skyline on crack. Urban planning on steroids - Dubai.

On the 88th floor of an unfinished skyscraper in the Emirate's glittering skyline, the life of a migrant labourer becomes fatefully intertwined with that of Jamie, a British expat with his eye on the big time.

Exploring the plight of Dubai's migrant labour force, this urgent new play asks how much longer we can look the other way.

Dubailand won new playwright Carmen Nasr a 2017 Channel 4 Playwrights Scheme Playwright in Residence Bursary at the Finborough Theatre, supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation.

Playwright Carmen Nasr is a British-Lebanese playwright, and is currently Channel 4 Playwrights Scheme Playwright in Residence, supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation at the Finborough Theatre, following a spell as Playwright on Attachment. Dubailand received a staged reading at Vibrant 2015 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights. Her first play, The House of My Father received a staged reading at Vibrant 2014 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, and was also part of the annual Nour Festival of Contemporary Middle Eastern and North African Art and Culture. In 2015, The House of My Father was longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize. She was shortlisted for the OffWestEnd Adopt a Playwright Award 2015.

Director Georgie Staight trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, and is currently Joint Artistic Director at Flux Theatre. Direction includes Dreamless Sleep (Arts Theatre), Bridle (Emerge at the Tristan Bates Theatre), Doomed Resistance (Arcola Theatre) and Next of Kin (Bristol Old Vic Studio). She is also a playwright and has directed her own work, the adaptation and world premiere of Deborah Levy's Billy and Girl (The Karamel Club), Let There Be Light (Chichester Festival Theatre) and Blue Moon (Clifton Theatre, Bristol).

The cast:
Nicholas Banks | Jamie
Trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Theatre includesThe Shawshank Redemption (National Tour), Punk Rock (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and National Tour), People Like Us (Pleasance London), The Happiest Day of Your Life (Vineyard Theatre, New York) and 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic 24 Hour Plays at The Old Vic).
Film includes Kingsman: The Secret Service, Synced and Seat 25.
Television includesLaw and Order and Pramface.

Aanya Chadha | Lali
Currently attends Future Stars Stage School and has been involved in a number of productions whilst training.

Adi Chugh | Amar
Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and short courses at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, New York City Acting School for Film and Television, Pennsylvania State University, with New Delhi's The Ilhaam Collective and Third Bell Theatre Company, New Delhi.
Theatre includes 5 Guys Chillin' (SoHo Playhouse, New York, King's Head Theatre and Edinburgh Festival), Northanger Abbey (Wickham Theatre, Bristol), Frankenstein (John Wesley Chapel, Bristol), 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (Wits Theatre Complex, Johannesburg), Ashadh Ka Ek Din (One Day Before The Rainy Season) (Actor Factor Theatre Company, New Delhi) and Apne Fan Ka Ustad (The Master of His Art) (Third Bell Theatre Company, New Delhi).
Film includes 3 Dots and A Dash and Pool Sharks.

Reena Lalbihari | Deena
Trained at East 15 Acting School.
Theatre includesFaustus (Headlong Theatre), Madame du Sade (Donmar Warehouse), Pole Factor (VAULT Festival) and Londonee (Mukul and Ghetto Tigers Theatre Company).
Film includes Temptation, Halal Harry, Final Score and The Children Act.
Television includes EastEnders, MIHigh, Day of the Triffids and The Bill.
Web Series includes Tempting Fates.

Miztli Rose Neville | Clara
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include The Great Divide.
Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Theatre includes Christmas at Mildred's (Hen and Chickens Theatre), How The Vote Was Won and Pot Kettle (Bloomsbury Festival) and The Pursuit of App-iness and Birdwatching (Gielgud Theatre).
Film includes Crown for Christmas.
Radio includes Ballerina Feet.
Miztli is a co-host of the podcast Heroine Addicts.

Varun Sharma | Tanveer
Trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
Theatre includes Billy and Girl (Karamel Club) and In Soft Wings (Tristan Bates Theatre).
Film includes Baar Baar Dekho (See It Again).
Television includes Hear Of The Year Promo and Lenovo K5 Note.

BeLinda Stewart-Wilson | Amanda
Trained at Webber Douglas Academy.
Theatre includes The Kitchen (Royal Court Theatre),United Biscuits Double Act (Canal Café Theatre) and Shady Business (The Mill at Sonning).
Film includes The Brother, Inbetweeners 2 (The Long Goodbye), All That Way for Love, The Inbetweeners, Huge, Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang), Razzle Dazzle (A Journey into Dance), La Passione and Move.
Television includes Sick Note, The Inbetweeners, Hetty Feather, Evermoor, Ordinary Lies, Ripper Street, Citizen Khan, Mr Sloane, Little Crackers, Holy Flying Circus, Popatron, Miranda, The Morgana Show, New Tricks, Whites, Primeval, The Peter Serafinowicz Show and The IT Crowd.

Leon Williams | Tommie
Trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Theatre includesOne Man, Two Guvnors (National Tour), Hobson's Choice, Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park), A Midsummer Night's Dream and King James Bible (Shakespeare's Globe), Great Expectations (Library Theatre, Manchester), Skylight (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), Wink (Theatre503), Lesere (Jermyn Street Theatre), Crimes Of The Heart (Union Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Peter Hall Company), As You Like It (Rose Theatre, Kingston), The Bullet (Royal Shakespeare Company at Hampstead Theatre), Private Peaceful (National Tour), Not About Heroes (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh), The Changeling (English Touring Theatre), As You Like It (Derby Playhouse), Charley's Aunt (Oxford Playhouse) and An Ideal Husband (Chichester Festival Theatre).
Film includes Toilets and Sceptre.
Television includesNew Tricks, Call The Midwife and Ford and Abram.
Leon also narrates various audio books and voices several animation characters.

Box Office 0844 847 1652 Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21 February 2017.
Sunday and Monday evenings at 7.30pm. Tuesday matinees at 2.00pm.
Tickets £18, £16 concessions. (Group Bookings - 1 free ticket for every 10 tickets booked.)
Performance Length: Approximately 90 minutes with no interval.

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