Alice Haig and Vince Leigh Lead THE BRINK at Orange Tree Theatre

The cast has been announced for Brad Birch's new play THE BRINK at Orange Tree Theatre. Alice Haig, Vince Leigh, Shvorne Marks and Ciarán Owens will lead the world premiere, directed by Mel Hillyard as recipient of the J.P. Morgan Emerging Director Award 2015, with designs from Hyemi Shin, and sound design and composition by Tom Gibbons. The show runs April 7-30, and is a co-production between the Orange Tree and W14 Productions, in association with the National Theatre Studio.

History teacher Nick is on the edge. A hidden secret lies under the Brink. Nick can't get it out of his mind. A series of visions force him to investigate what lies beneath. Nick's girlfriend doesn't understand. Neither do his fellow teachers. Frustrated, he confides in a Year 10 student but can she be expected to have all the answers?

A sharp, funny, dark new play from Brad Birch, who is under commission to the Royal Court Theatre and the RSC. He has had work produced by the Royal Court, Sherman Cymru, Theatre503 and the National Youth Theatre. His work has been performed in Russia, the USA, Italy, Germany and Spain, and his 2013 show Gardening: For the Unfulfilled and Alienated won a Scotsman Edinburgh Fringe First.

The J.P. Morgan Emerging Director Award 2015 gives winning director Mel Hillyard the chance to stage a production in an established London fringe venue and a residency at the National Theatre Studio in order to gain professional expertise and industry contacts.

Mel Hillyard's directing credits include The Late Henry Moss (Southwark Playhouse), Love and Information (The Caird Theatre), Hamlet (The Secret Nuclear Bunker - East 15), Hard Shoulders (Latitude Festival), Even Stillness Breathes Softly Against a Brick Wall (Theatre503), In An Instant (Latitude Festival and Theatre503), His Face Her Face, Three Is Company (King's Head), Loose Ends (Edinburgh Festival). She has also acted as Associate, Assistant or Staff Director at the National Theatre, RSC, Hampstead, West End and Theatre Royal, Stratford East.

Alice Haig's theatre credits include 84 Charing Cross Road (Southwark Playhouse), 'Tis Pity She's A Whore (Shakespeare's Globe), Sense and Sensibility (Watermill, Newbury), Wasted (Paines Plough), The Fairy Queen (Glyndebourne), Even Stillness Breathes Softly Against a Brick Wall, Greek Tragedy (Theatre503), and The Children's Hour (Royal Exchange).

Vince Leigh has appeared in Sunny Afternoon (Harold Pinter Theatre) and Propeller's productions of The Taming of Shrew, Twelfth Night, Henry V, The Winter's Tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Rose Rage. Recent TV includes Babylon, Endeavour and New Tricks.

Shvorne Marks played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth for the Orange Tree's 2015 Shakespeare Up Close production. She has also appeared in Flare Path (UK tour), The Witch of Edmonton (RSC), The Tea Party (Park Theatre), Some Other Mother (Traverse/Tron). TV includes Endeavour and Holby City.

Ciarán Owens' theatre credits include Don't Waste Your Bullets on the Dead (Vault Festival), Disco Pigs (House), So Here We Are (Royal Exchange/Hightide), The Crocodile (Invisible Dot/Manchester International Festival), King John (Shakespeare's Globe), A Handful of Stars (Theatre503/Trafalgar Studios), Oh What A Lovely War (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Candide, Titus Andronicus and A Mad World My Masters (RSC), and Our Country's Good (Out of Joint). TV includes Arthur and George, Spotless and Wallander.

The Orange Tree Theatre aims to stir, delight, challenge, move and amaze with a bold and continually evolving mix of new and re-discovered plays in our unique in-the-round space. We want to change lives by telling remarkable stories from a wide variety of times and places, filtered through the singular imagination of our writers and the remarkable close-up presence of our actors.

A theatre of this scale, with the audience wrapped around the players, invites acting to be the centre of the experience. This is theatre as a figurative art: the human being literally at its centre. We want to experience voices and stories from our past and our present alongside visions of the future. Life as it's lived: unplugged and un-miked. Close-up magic. Truths the hand can touch.

Over its 44-year history the Orange Tree has had a very strong track record in discovering writers and promoting their early work, as well rediscovering artists from the past whose work had either been disregarded or forgotten. Over the past 18 months the work of Terence Rattigan, Doris Lessing, Mustapha Matura, Bernard Shaw, Sharman Macdonald and DH Lawrence has played alongside new work by Alistair McDowall, Alice Birch, Deborah Bruce and Adam Barnard.

The National Theatre is dedicated to making the very best theatre and sharing it with as many people as possible. They produce up to 30 productions on the South Bank each year, ranging from re-imagined classics - such as Greek tragedy and Shakespeare - to modern masterpieces and new work by contemporary writers and theatre-makers. The work they make strives to be as open, as diverse, as collaborative and as national as possible. The NT wants to inspire artists and audiences to think in new ways, to constantly re-imagine the act of making theatre. The newly formed New Work Department is housed at the NT Studio and brings together the combined resource of the Literary Department and the Studio into an engine room for the development of new work for all the National Theatre's stages and beyond; they are committed to nurturing innovative work from new writers, directors, creative artists and performers.

The National Theatre is a J.P. Morgan sponsorship partner and is supported by Arts Council England.

W14 Productions is run by Annabel Williamson. Recent credits include The Late Henry Moss, Upper Cut and As You Like It (Southwark Playhouse). Annabel also produced (in her own name) the initial run of Beyond Caring at The Yard.

Photo: Shutterstock

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