Felicity Huffman Will Make Her UK Stage Debut in the Revival of HIR at the Park Theatre

Multi award-winning actress Felicity Huffman, renowned for her roles in the 2005 film Transamerica and international hit television series Desperate Housewives, makes her UK stage debut in the revival of Hir, an explosive comedy by Taylor Mac opening at Park Theatre in 2024.

Emmy and Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives, Transamerica) makes her UK stage debut as the radical matriarch Paige in Hir, a disarmingly funny and strikingly original comedy. Named ‘one of the most exciting theatre artists of our time' by Time Out New York, Pulitzer and Tony-nominee Taylor Mac explodes the dysfunctional family drama and reinvents it for our times. Playing at Park Theatre from the 15 February to the 16 March 2024.

Felicity says of playing Paige: "I'm honored to get to work with Steve Kunis and to perform at the Park Theatre. As an ardent fan of Taylor Mac I'm so thrilled I get to act in one of Taylor's brilliant plays. I studied in London back in the palaeolithic era and it has been a dream of mine to come back here and work someday. I'm a lucky gal."

In a revival by critically acclaimed director Steven Kunis, Hir grapples with a family in flux, as they attempt to build a brave new world out of pieces of the old.

Isaac, the prodigal son (Steffan Cennydd) has returned home from the brutality of war, only to discover his family home transformed by domestic revolution. The patriarchy has fallen, and his mother Paige (Felicity Huffman) has been liberated from an oppressive marriage to Arnold (Simon Startin).  Enlisting Isaac's newly out transgender sibling Max (Thalía Dudek) as her ally, Paige is on a crusade to tear apart the old regimes – but in Taylor Mac's funny and strikingly original comedy, annihilating the past doesn't always free you from it.

Felicity Huffman, probably most recognized for playing Lynette Scavo in the comedy drama Desperate Housewives, and for her impactful role in the film Transamerica, began her acting career in theatre. In 1988 she debuted on Broadway in David Mamet's play Speed the Plow and in 1995 Huffman won an Obie Award for her performance in The Cryptogram, also by Mamet. Huffman's film and television accolades include an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Transamerica, as well as a Golden Globe Award and Independent Spirit Award for the same role, and an Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Huffman can be seen on the ABC series American Crime, When They See Us on Netflix, the 2019 comedy Otherhood as well as the independent movie, Tammy's Always Dying. She is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company, an off-Broadway theater in New York City.

Steffan Cennydd received a Breakthrough nomination at the 2019 British Academy Cymru Awards for the TV series, Enid a Lucy. His theatre credits include The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe/World Tour); Under Milk Wood (Watermill Theatre) and The Melting Pot (Finborough Theatre). Steffan can soon be seen in the new Apple TV series, Criminal Record with Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi. Australian actor Thalía Dudek's theatre credits include Confessions (National Theatre) and Gundog for Melbourne's Three Fates Theatre Company, of which they are a founder member.

Simon Startin is an actor, writer, director, and disability rights activist. His theatre credits include The Tempest (Royal Shakespeare Company); Afterlife, The Visit (National Theatre); Romeo and Juliet, Richard III (Shakespeare's Rose Theatre/Blenheim Palace); Ralegh: The Treason Trial (Shakespeare's Globe); The Plague (Arcola Theatre) and The Government Inspector (Birmingham Rep).

Taylor Mac is an actor, playwright, performance artist, director, producer, and singer-songwriter. Judy (Taylor's preferred pronoun but any will do) is a MacArthur “genius”, the first (and to date only) American to receive the International Ibsen Award, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a Tony nominee for Best Play, and the recipient of the Kennedy Prize, the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim, a Drama League Award, a NY Drama Critics Circle Award, two Obie's, and two Bessies. Mac is the librettist of Bark of Millions and The Hang (both with music by Matt Ray); and the author of the plays Joy and Pandemic; Gary, A Sequel to Titus Andronicus; The Walk Across America for Mother Earth; The Lily's Revenge; and the children's play The Fre; among many others. Mac's performance art concert A 24-Decade History of Popular Music was performed at the Barbican in 2018 as part of LIFT.

American director Steven Kunis was nominated for Best Director of a Play at the Off West End Awards for the UK Premiere of Young Jean Lee's Straight White Men (Southwark Playhouse), which The Independent named as one of the UK's top ten theatre events of 2021. Steven directed the critically acclaimed revival of Joe DiPietro's F**king Men (Waterloo East), the UK premiere of Tanya Barfield's Bright Half Life (King's Head Theatre), the World Premiere of Olivier Award-nominee Shaun McKenna's Rocky Road (Jermyn Street Theatre), the UK Debut of The Refugee Orchestra Project at the LSO St Luke's, and the acclaimed three-month run of S. Asher Gelman's Afterglow (Waterloo East), for which Steven was again nominated Best Director at the Off West End Awards.

Set and Costume Design is by Ceci Calf whose credits include Not Now & Yes So I Said Yes (Finborough), The Mozart Question (Barn Theatre, Cirencester), Farm Hall (Jermyn Street/Theatre Royal Bath/UK Tour); The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas, A Skull In Connemara (Dailes Teātris Riga, Latvia); Othello (Watermill Theatre); Love & Information (Clapham Omnibus); Breeding (Kings Head); Under The Black Rock (Arcola); Orlando (Jermyn Street) and Warrior Queens (Sadler's Wells). Lighting designer Ryan Joseph Stafford works across the UK and Europe in theatre and dance. His credits include TRAPLORD (Studio, Southbank Festival Series 2023), BACON (UK Tour), Breeding (King's Head Theatre), Akshay Sharma: Can This Be A Temple? (The Place, UK Tour), Vortex (Russell Maliphant Dance Company); Shades of Blue (Sadler's Wells, Matsena Productions, BBC Arts); Natalia Osipova: Force of Nature (Bloom Dance Project/ World Tour); Grimeboy (Birmingham Rep) and Dance for Ukraine (London Coliseum). In 2019, Ryan received the ‘Michael Northern Award for Excellence in Lighting Design' from the Association of Lighting Designers. Fight and Intimacy direction is by Claire Llewellyn of RC-Annie Ltd and casting by Becky Parris.

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