Casting Announced for THE SWEETHEARTS at Finborough Theatre

Directed by Daniel Burgess. Designed by Alex Marker. Lighting by Paul Comerford. Sound by Edward Lewis. Produced by Ian Melding. Presented by Announcement Productions and Raise Dark Theatre Company in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre.

Cast: Jack Bannon. Joe Claflin. Jack Derges. Laura Hanna. Stevie Raine. Sophie Stevens.
Doireann May White. Maria Yarjah.

"These charity gigs are always in bloody awful countries. I wish someone would fight a war in Marbella. I wish there were starving people in bloody Hawaii."

A world premiere, originally seen as a staged reading as part of Vibrant 2014 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, The Sweethearts is a new play by exciting new playwright Sarah Page opening at the Finborough Theatre for a four week limited season on Tuesday, 22 September 2015 (Press Nights: Thursday, 24 September and Friday, 25 September 2015 at 7.30pm).

Coco, Mari and Helena are The Sweethearts, a manufactured girl band who are rarely off the front page of the tabloids. In need of some positive publicity, they travel to Afghanistan to do a special gig for the troops at Camp Bastion before the base is handed over to Afghan officials. A group of battle weary soldiers, chosen to protect these three beautiful celebrities, eagerly await their arrival. But when there's an attack on the base, The Sweethearts and the soldiers are thrown together and forced to wait it out in very close quarters...

Marking the first anniversary of the departure of British Troops from Afghanistan after a thirteen year campaign and the deaths of 453 British service personnel, The Sweethearts is a new play about the people we choose to make into our heroes and how we tear them back down...

Playwright Sarah Page returns to the Finborough Theatre where she was formerly a script reader. Sarah was a member of the Royal Court Theatre's Young Writers' Group, before being invited to join their Studio Writers' Group. She recently participated in the Milano Festival Playwriting Scheme in association with the Finborough Theatre. Her first full length play Pilgrims (Etcetera Theatre), débuted last year to critical acclaim, and Sarah has also had performances of her work at the Arcola Theatre, Curve Theatre Leicester, Old Vic Tunnels, Hampstead Theatre and Soho Theatre. Sarah was a contributing writer for BBC Radio 4's new comedy series The Show What You Wrote, and her first television drama pilot GYPPO was shortlisted for the final stage of the BBC's Scriptroom 4 Prize. The Sweethearts was a finalist in the Curve Leicester Playwriting Competition, whose judges included the Finborough Theatre's Artistic Director Neil McPherson, and was also supported by IdeasTap, Writing East Midlands and BBC WritersRoom. The play had its first performance as a sell-out staged reading at the Finborough Theatre's Vibrant 2014 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights.

Director Daniel Burgess returns to the Finborough Theatre where he directed the critically acclaimed UK premiere production of Suzan-Lori Parks' In the Blood. He was previously a Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre where he assisted on A Day at the Racists, Moliere or the League of Hypocrites and Too True to be Good. Trained at Middlesex University. Direction include The Little Blue Boat and the Secret of the Broads (New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, and Latitude Festival) Starting Tomorrow, Guardian Angel (Park Theatre) The Pillowman (Norwich Playhouse),To Defend Freedom, Waterton's Wild Menagerie (Theatre503), Days of Significance, Nativity, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Theatre Royal Norwich Youth Company), The Dispossessed (Etcetera Theatre), Coming and Going (Lighthouse Theatre, Poole) and Christie in Love (Edinburgh Festival). Associate Direction includes working with James Dacre on As You Like It (Shakespeare's Globe) and Orpheus and Eurydice (National Youth Theatre). Assistant Direction includes assisting John Dove on Anne Boleyn (English Touring Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe), James Dacre on As You Like It (Shakespeare's Globe) and Peter Wilson on Skylight (Norwich Playhouse).

The cast is:
Jack Bannon | Private Trevor Smith
Theatre includes Foxfinder (Gothenburg English Studio Theatre).
Film includes The Imitation Game, Fury and Kids in Love.
Television includes Endeavour, The Giblet Boys and Shadow Play.

Joe Claflin | Private David Robins
Trained at LAMDA.
Theatre includes Pericles (Sam Wanamaker Festival at Shakespeare's Globe) and Scarborough (White Bear Theatre).
Television includes Game of Thrones, Wallander, Grantchester, The Pity of War, Da Vinci's Demons, Life of Crime, EastEnders and Holby City.

Jack Derges | Lance Corporal Mark Savy
Trained at the Arts Educational Schools.
Film includes Passengers and Dungeons and Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness.
Television includes Humans, Skins, Holby City, Casualty, Switch, WPC56, Cucumber, Episodes, Crims, and The Royals.

Laura Hanna | Corporal Rachel Taylor
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Perchance To Dream.
Trained at LAMDA after reading English at Oxford University.
Theatre includes A Bright Room Called Day (Southwark Playhouse), Foreplay (King's Head Theatre), Red Peppers/Still Life (Old Red Lion Theatre), Lean (Tristan Bates Theatre), Beasts and Beauties (Hampstead Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Chelsea Theatre), Daddy Took My Debt Away (Theatre503 and Southwark Playhouse), Much Ado About Nothing (Drayton Arms Theatre), The Warden (Upstairs at the Gatehouse), Palindrome (Arcola Theatre) and Romeo and Juliet (Thelma Holt and Cameron Mackintosh Tour).
Television includes Drillerfiller.
Radio includes The Eustace Diamonds.

Stevie Raine | Captain Thomas Nicholls
Theatre includes Shakespeare in Love (Noel Coward Theatre), Troilus and Cressida, Sonnet Walks, Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare's Globe), Odourless (Soho Theatre), Lucifer Ex Machina (Greenwich Theatre), Shakespeare's Shorts (Camden Peoples Theatre), Sticks and Stones (Theatre503), The Love Girl and The Innocent (Southwark Playhouse), Shingletown (Greenwich Theatre), Confessions of Love: Love Hurts (The Roundhouse), Love Vs Hate: To the End of Love (Tristan Bates Theatre), Hope (Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool), Titus Andronicus and Clockwork Orange (Action to the Word), Romeo and Juliet (Shanghai Expo) and As You Like it and Comedy of Errors (Cambridge Shakespeare Festival).
Television includes X Company, By Any Means and Vikings.

Sophie Stevens | Corinne (Coco)
Trained at Italia Conti Academy.
Film includes The Haunting and The Black Prince.
Television includes Doctors, The Royals.

Doireann May White | Marianne (Mari)
Trained at RADA after reading Drama and Theatre Studies at Trinity College, Dublin.
Theatre includes There is No Failure, Only Feedback (Rosemary Branch Theatre), The Sugar Wife, Women of Twilight, The Rover and New Labour (RADA), The Importance Of Being Earnest and The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin), The Lonesome West (National Tour) and The Making of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Project Arts Centre, Dublin).
Film includes Student/Teacher and Nothing Surrounded by Us.

Maria Yarjah | Helena
Trained at The Brit School of Performing Arts.
Theatre includes Ladylogue (Tristan Bates Theatre), Family Misfortune (Writers Avenue), Krunch (UK and South Africa Tour for Talawa Theatre Company) and How Lion Became King of Tinga Tinga Land (UK Tour).

Alongside The Sweethearts, Raise Dark Theatre Company are running the Battle Lines New Writing Programme giving current and ex-service personnel the skills to write a play. All the Battle Lines participants have had little or no previous involvement in the arts and will be mentored by Sarah Page and professional playwrights Miran Hadzic and Sarah Hamilton. Thanks to the support of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Arts Grants Scheme, Battle Lines is completely free for those taking part. On Thursday 15 and Friday 16 October, after the performance, and free to ticketholders for those performances, there will be a free 40 minutes post-show rehearsed reading of a selection of the Battle Lines writers' plays.

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