Full Company Announced For Theatr Clwyd's MOLD RIOTS

Theatr Clwyd today announces further details for the world première of Bethan Marlow's Mold Riots, which will see a community and professional cast bring one of Wales' forgotten dark days to life on the streets of Mold in a large-scale promenade production with locations including Mold Town Council Chamber, Mold cattle market and St Mary's Church. Katie Posner directs Gethin Alderman (Robat), Lauren Fitzpatrick (Margaret), Amy Forrest (Ailis), and Kai Owen (David), alongside a community cast of over 100 from ages 7 to 87, including 30 children.

Artistic Director of Theatr Clwyd, Tamara Harvey, said today, ""We're phenomenally proud to be staging Mold Riots - an incredibly ambitious undertaking, taking place on the High Street and surrounding areas. It's this community's story, and this piece is very much born of them - with a local cast of over 100 people of all ages, and teams involved in writing, prop and costume making, photography and music, guided and supported by our team and led by the wonderful Katie Posner. This epic promenade production is a not simply a piece of history but a story for now."

Summer, 1869. Miners stand trial in Mold for attacking their manager after their wages are lowered. A crowd has assembled to hear the verdict - will they get a fair hearing? Stones will be thrown and blood will be shed but will anyone find justice?

Marking 150 years since these events tore the town apart, Mold Riots tells this local story with the involvement of the local community at every stage, with a community photography and film group, costume group, writers' group, and knitting group, as well as a community scenic art team making over 1000 pieces of coal. The professional and community cast will also be accompanied by local choirs, including Cor Y Pentan, Northop Voices, Maes Garmon, and Buckley Singers, performing an original score.

This production is Theatr Clwyd's most ambitious to date, with the wardrobe team making over 800 items of costume including traditional Welsh clogs, and a specially formed Mold Riots knitting group making coal, shawls and hats for the 100-strong cast who come from all walks of life, from lawyers to electricians, from teachers to the Mayor of Mold.

Bethan Marlow's site-specific interactive theatre productions include A Queer Christmas and Mess Up The Mess in collaboration with the LGBT community of Swansea, C'laen ta! (Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru) with the residents of a council estate in North Wales, and her first verbatim play Sgint (Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru). Her other work includes From Land to Mouth (Pentabus), Cysgu'n Brysur (Arad Goch, Aberystwyth Arts Centre and WMC), Ar Waith ar Daith (Walk the Plank), PyC (S4C/BBC Wales), A Place Called Home (Birmingham Rep), The Beach (National Theatre Wales) and Such Tweet Sorrow (Royal Shakespeare Company). Marlowe was selected as one of four Welsh writers on the talent scheme 'Y Labordy'. She received a Creative Wales Award to explore the possibility of the "audience as co-creators of theatre" and won the first "Straeon Iris" competition (an Iris Prize/S4C/Ffilm Cymru and Bfi Net.wok initiative) which culminated in the short film Afiach (Sick) which premièred at the Iris Prize Film Festival this year.

Gethin Alderman plays Robat. His previous theatre credits include Blue, Blue & Shift Work (King's Head Theatre), Seagulls (Volcano Theatre), Incident at Vichy (Finborough Theatre), You're Invited (Southwark Playhouse), Tiddler and Other Terrific Tales (UK and international tour), The Princess and the Pea (Theatr Iolo), Hamlet (Secret Theatre London), and Quarter-Life Crisis (Theatre Royal Stratford East). For television, his credits include Observations on Relationships.

Lauren Fitzpatrick plays Margaret. Her previous theatre credits include The Scene: Fictional Female Anonymous (Tabard Theatre), Just to Get Married (Finborough Theatre), and The Play List, Presenting: I Don't Know Where I Am, and Drinking Concrete: The Concept Album (Royal Court Theatre). For television, her credits include EastEnders as series regular Chloe.

Amy Forrest plays Ailis. Her previous theatre credits include Small Island (National Theatre), The Wide Night (Greater Manchester Fringe), Romy and Michele High School Reunion (The Lowry), Making Waves - JB Shorts, The Loves of Others (53two), Beautiful Monster (Gene Frankel Theatre, NY, Footlights Theatre), and Beauty and the Beast (UK tour). For television, her credits include Coronation Street as recurring character P.C. Hanley.

Kai Owen returns to Theatr Clwyd to play David - he previously appeared in Under Milk Wood, Aristocrats, The Winslow Boy, Rape of the Fair Country, Glengarry Glen Ross, As You Like It and A Chorus of Disapproval. His previous theatre credits include The Full Monty (UK tour), Ying Tong - A Walk With The Goons (New Ambassadors Theatre). For television, his credits include Hollyoaks as series regular Pete, Cariad Erin, The Syndicate, and Torchwood as series regular Rhys.

Katie Posner directs. She has recently been appointed as co-Artistic Director of Paines Plough, and was previously the Associate Director of Pilot Theatre, York, for eight years, where she directed multiple national and international touring productions. Her 2017 national tour of Made in India (Tamasha, Belgrade Theatre, Pilot Theatre) was nominated for an Off West End award, and won the Eastern Eye Theatre and Culture Award for Best Production. Recent productions include Swallows and Amazons (new adaptation by Bryony Lavery) for Storyhouse Chester, Babe for Mercury Colchester, Bridget Foreman's Everything is Possible: The York Suffragettes at York Theatre Royal and Finding Nana by Jane Upton for New Perspectives. Posner has also directed productions for Northern Stage, Tron Theatre, Live Theatre and Out of Joint amongst many others.

Box Office: 01352 701521 or www.theatrclwyd.com/en/

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