Full Cast Set For JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK Starring J. Smith-Cameron and Mark Rylance

The full cast has been announced for the new production of Seán O'Casey's timeless masterpiece, Juno and the Paycock, directed by Tony and Olivier award-winner Matthew Warchus.

Joining the previously announced J. Smith-Cameron (Juno Boyle) and Mark Rylance (‘Captain' Jack Boyle) are Paul Hilton (‘Joxer' Daly), Aisling Kearns (Mary Boyle), Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty (Johnny Boyle), Ingrid Craigie (Mrs Tancred), Anna Healy (Mrs Maisie Madigan), Chris Walley (Charles Bentham), Seán Duggan (‘Needle' Nugent), Leo Hanna (Jerry Devine), Jessica Cervi, Caolan McCarthy, Bryan Moriarty, John Rice and Jacinta Whyte.

Juno and the Paycock sees Sonia Friedman, Matthew Warchus and Mark Rylance reunite following their acclaimed productions of Boeing-Boeing and La Bête. The strictly limited run opens at the Gielgud Theatre on Thursday 3 October, with previews from Saturday 21 September, and runs until Saturday 23 November 2024.

The creative team is Rob Howell (Set and Costume Designer), Hugh Vanstone (Lighting Designer), Claire van Kampen (Composer), Simon Baker (Sound Designer) and Serena Hill CDG (Casting Director).

As part of an ongoing commitment to make theatre accessible for as many people as possible, there are over 1100 tickets per week at £25 or lower, with more than one third of the house for every performance priced at £55 or lower.

Additionally, there will be 1260 tickets across the run priced at £30 for under 30s as well as £25 day seats for every performance. Each week there will be a limited number of seats released for the week ahead in the Stalls and Dress Circle at £25 or Standing at £10.

Dublin, 1922, the Irish Civil War is tearing the nation apart. In the cauldron of the family's tiny tenement flat, Juno Boyle, a beleaguered matriarch whose sharp wit is a survival tool, struggles to make ends meet and keep the family together. Her husband, ‘Captain' Jack Boyle, fancies himself a ship's commander but sails no further than the pub. When providence comes knocking with life changing news, could the family's troubles finally fade away?

Poetic, poignant, and hilarious, Juno and the Paycock is a big-hearted, black-humoured, tragi-comic triumph that reflects on a mother's resilience in the midst of life's most trying moments.

J. Smith-Cameron (Juno Boyle)

J. Smith-Cameron is a lauded stage, film, and television actress whose career has spanned over four decades. J. is best known for starring as a series regular on the hit HBO series Succession. Her portrayal of Gerri Kellman, Waystar Royco's General Counsel, garnered J. two back-to-back Primetime Emmy Award nominations as well as Golden Globe Award and Critics Choice Award nominations.

Most recently, J. appeared as a recurring guest star opposite Jean Smart on the hit comedy series Hacks on HBO Max. She also starred in Peacock's animated comedy series In the Know.

In film, J. is well known for her leading performance as Joan in her husband Kenneth Lonergan's beloved, critically acclaimed film Margaret (2011). She also starred in Blumhouse and Focus Feature's thriller Vengeance, the directorial debut of B.J. Novak, and The Year Between, an independent drama feature from Alex Heller, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Among her many film credits, J. was featured in the Sundance-winning film Nancy opposite Andrea Riseborough, Steve Buscemi, and John Leguizamo. Her striking portrayal of a mother whose child goes missing three decades prior garnered her an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress.

On television, J. is also well known as a series regular on Sundance TV's Rectify, as well as her recurring roles on HBO's True Blood and Divorce.

Also an acclaimed stage actress, J.'s Broadway credits include: Lend Me a Tenor (1989); Our Country's Good (1991), for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play; Night Must Fall (1999); Tartuffe (2002), and Elaine May's After the Night and the Music (2005).

Her extensive off-Broadway work includes: As Bees in Honey Drown (1997), for which she won an Obie Award and earned a Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nomination; Fuddy Meers (1999), for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award; Sarah, Sarah (2004); The Starry Messenger (2009); Sorry (2012); Juno and the Paycock (2013), for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and was the recipient of the 2013 Joe E. Callaway Award; and Peace for Mary Frances (2018).

Mark Rylance (‘Captain' Jack Boyle)

This is happily the seventh theatrical collaboration between Mark and Matthew Warchus.

Giles Havergal and The Glasgow Citizens Theatre gave Mark his first professional job in 1980.

In the eighties and nineties, Mark worked with many theatre companies in England and America, including the NT; The Bush; The Tricycle, Contact (Manchester); TANA (New York); A.R.T. (Boston); The Guthrie (Minneapolis). He became an Associate Artist of the RSC, where he played Hamlet, Romeo, and a number of other roles. He founded two cooperative theatre companies, The London Theatre of Imagination and Phoebus' Cart, which toured sacred sites such as The Rollright Stones.

He trained at RADA in the great days of Hugh Cruttwell and the work of Mike Alfreds, and his company, Shared Experience, continues to be particularly inspiring and transformative in all he does.

In 1996, at age 36, Mark became the first Artistic Director of Sam Wanamaker's project to rebuild Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Throughout his career, he has acted in more than 50 productions by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He is a trustee of The Shakespearean Authorship Trust and friend of The Francis Bacon Research Trust.

After leaving the Globe in 2006, Sonia Friedman became his angel. With her company and associates she has supported Rylance in eight productions, Boeing-Boeing, La Bête, Jerusalem, Twelfth Night, Richard III, Farinelli and the King, Nice Fish, and most recently Dr Semmelweis. Rylance was a co-author of Dr Semmelweis and Nice Fish, and also wrote I am Shakespeare for Greg Ripley Productions and The Chichester Festival Theatre.

Film work includes three films with Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies, The BFG, and Ready Player One. Other films include The Outfit, Don't Look Up, The Phantom of the Open, Bones and All, Waiting for the Barbarians, Dunkirk, Prospero's Books, The Grass Arena, and The Institute Benjamenta.

His television appearances include four mini-series with Peter Kosminsky; The Government Inspector, The Undeclared War, Wolf Hall, and the soon to be broadcast Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.

Mark is an honorary bencher of the Middle Temple Hall in London. He is also a founding patron of the London-based charity Peace Direct, which supports local peacebuilders in areas of conflict. Lately his work has focused on Intermission Youth Theatre and The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. He will always be a patron of Survival, the international movement for Tribal Peoples and Stop the War.

In 2017 he was knighted for services to the Theatre.

Jessica Cervi (Ensemble)

Training: Royal Academy of Music.

Theatre whilst training: California Suite, City of Angels, Titanic, Talent.

Theatre includes: Family Talent Night (24 Hour Plays/ Abbey, Dublin); Toy Show: The Musical (RTÉ/ The Convention Centre, Dublin); The Commitments (Palace); Fame: The Musical (Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin/ Irish National Tour).

Television includes: Sunday Night at The Palladium, Fame: The Musical.

Ingrid Craigie (Mrs Tancred)

Theatre includes: Dinner with Groucho (Dublin Theatre Festival/ Belfast International Arts Festival/ Arcola); The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Chichester Festival Theatre/ Lyric Hammersmith); Richard III (Abbey, Dublin/ Lincoln Center, New York); Sweet Bird of Youth (Chichester Festival Theatre); Juno and the Paycock, A Month in the Country, The Deep Blue Sea, Faith Healer, (Gate, Dublin); The Cripple of Inishmaan (Noël Coward/ Cort, New York); Hay Fever (Gate, Dublin/ Spoleto Festival, Charleston); The Plough and the Stars, Aristocrats, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice (Abbey, Dublin); Wonderful Tennessee (Abbey, Dublin/ Plymouth, New York); A Life (Abbey, Dublin/ Old Vic); Talbot's Box (Abbey, Dublin/ Royal Court); Boston Marriage, Copenhagen, Splendour (Project Arts Centre, Dublin); Crave (Edinburgh Fringe Festival/ Ambassadors/ Royal Court/ Paines Plough); The Weir (Centaur, Montreal); The Wexford Trilogy (Bush).

Television includes: The Hardacres, Blackshore, Epic, Roadkill, The Madame Blanc Mysteries, Blood, Striking Out, The Alienist, Jack Taylor, The Rebel Doctor, When Harvey Met Bob, Prosperity, The Whistleblower, The Running Mate, Pure Mule, Ballykissangel, Thou Shalt Not Kill, Force of Duty, Caught in a Free State, Ballroom of Romance.

Film includes: You Are Not My Mother, Death of a Ladies' Man, Delinquent Season, Entebbe, Psychic, The Flag, The Girl with the Mechanical Maiden, Citadel, Sensation, Benedict Arnold, A Man of No Importance, Da, Circle of Friends, The Dead.

Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty (Johnny Boyle)

Training: Lír Academy, Dublin.

Theatre whilst training includes: Arcadia (dir. Hilary Wood), The Visit (dir. Oonagh Murphy), Absolute Hell (dir. Davey Kelleher), Punk Rock (dir. Tom Creed).

Theatre includes: The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Dorset Theatre Festival, Vermont).

Seán Duggan (‘Needle' Nugent)

Theatre includes: Safe House (Abbey Theatre); Hamlet (Volta / National Opera House); A Face in The Crowd (Discover/Recover Theatre Project); Bees! (WillFredd Theatre / The Dublin Theatre Festival); Yeats Besotted (Mouth On Fire); All That Fall (Out Of Joint); Gerry and the Peace Process (Volta); Othello (Storytellers); Alone It Stands (Lane Productions); The Murdering Hole (Town Hall Theatre, Galway); How High Is Up (TEAM); Rhinoceros (Kabosh); The Merchant of Venice (Corcadorca); An Triail (Aisling Ghéar); As You Like It (Classic Stage Ireland); Fire Face (Nervousystem); Measure For Measure (Rattlebag); Twelfth Night (Natural Shocks); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Natural Shocks); Hamlet (Praxis); The Tender Mercies (Dark Horse Theatre Company).

Television includes: House of Guinness, Sherlock & Daughter, The Hardacres, The Velveteen Rabbit, Der Irland Krimi, Harry Wild, Clean Sweep, Redemption, The Spectacular, Normal People, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, Dublin Murders, Blood, Into the Badlands, Bridget and Eamon, Murdair Mhám Trasna, Striking Out, Can't Cope Won't Cope, Wrecking the Rising, Cumann na mBan, Clean Break, Vikings, Damo and Ivor, Ripper Street, The Savage Eye, Trivia, Three Wise Women, The Tudors, Killinascully, The Clinic, Fair City.

Film includes: Stockholm Bloodbath, Lee, Hammarskjöld: Fight for Peace, Farmers!?, Disenchanted, Herself, The Fear, My Mother's Shoes, The Sisters Brothers, The Man Who Invented Christmas, How Was Your Day?, End of Sentence, The Professor and the Madman, The Lobster, Love Rosie, The Food Guide to Love, Jimi: All Is By My Side, Sanctuary, Killing Bono, Death of a Superhero.

Leo Hanna (Jerry Devine)

Training: The Lir Academy, Dublin.

Theatre whilst Training: Blood Wedding (dir. Catríona McLaughlin); Playboy of the Western World (dir. Eoghan Carrick); The Merchant of Venice (dir. Lynne Parker); Thebans (dir. Annabelle Comyn).

Theatre includes: Let's Try Swingin' (Smock Alley, Dublin); The Giggler Treatment (Ark, Dublin); Master Class (Smock Alley, Dublin); Toy Show: The Musical (RTÉ/ The Convention Centre, Dublin).

Film includes: Cocaine Bear, About Joan, Joyride, Wolf.

Anna Healy (Mrs Maisie Madigan)

Theatre includes: Audrey or Sorrow, Portia Coughlan (winner of Irish Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress), The Fall of the Second Republic (Abbey Theatre); Theatre for One: This Ireland – Cygum Canticum (Cork Midsummer Festival); Druid O'Casey: The Dublin Plays (Druid); The Last Return (Galway International Arts Festival/ Edinburgh Festival/ Gate Theatre/ UK tour, winner of Best Supporting Actress at Irish Theatre Awards); The White Devil (Shakespeare's Globe); The Seagull (Gaiety Theatre Dublin); The Spin (Corcadorca, winner of Best Supporting Actress at Irish Theatre Awards).

Television includes: Small Town Big Story, Showtrial.

Film includes: Housejackers.

Paul Hilton (‘Joxer' Daly)

Theatre includes: An Enemy of the People, The Glass Menagerie (Duke of York's); Ghosts (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse); Othello, Mosquitoes, Peter Pan, Wonder.land (National Theatre); The Inheritance (Young Vic / Noël Coward / Broadway, Tony nominated); Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court).

Television includes: Slow Horses, A Very English Scandal, The Crown.

Upcoming television includes: A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story.

Film includes: Wasteman, Earwig, Eternal Beauty, Lady Macbeth, London Road, Wuthering Heights, Sweet Sue, Klimt.

Aisling Kearns (Mary Boyle)

Training: University of Limerick and Gaiety School of Acting.

Theatre includes: The Long Christmas Dinner (Abbey, Dublin); Circle of Friends, The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Gaiety, Dublin); Asking for It (Landmark Productions); The Spin (Corcadorca).

Television includes: Faithless, Darklands, Fair City.

Upcoming television includes: Sherlock & Daughter.

Film includes: Barber.

Caolan McCarthy (Ensemble)

Training: RADA.

Theatre includes: Amélie the Musical (Criterion/ UK and Ireland tour); The Beggar's Opera (Storyhouse, Chester); Much Ado About Nothing (Rose, Kingston); Once (New Wolsey, Ipswich / Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch); The Plough and the Stars (National).

Film includes: Belfast.

Discography includes: own debut album Paper and Stone, Amélie (Original London Cast Recording).

Bryan Moriarty (Ensemble)

Training: LAMDA.

Theatre includes: A Christmas Carol (Folkoperan, Stockholm); Rapture (Pink Sky Theatre); Saint Jude (Swamp Motel); Kindred Spirits (Jack Studio Theatre); Three Short Plays by Samuel Beckett (Old Red Lion); Lady Windermere's Fan (UK tour); Hamlet (Changeling Theatre).

Television includes: Vera, The Vanishing Triangle, Almost Never.

Film includes: The Wonder.

Publications include: Sounds Like Fun.

John Rice plays (Ensemble)

Training: LAMDA.

Theatre includes: Sive (Gaiety, Dublin).

Film includes: Mix Tape.

Chris Walley (Charles Bentham)

Theatre includes: The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Noël Coward, winner of Olivier Award and Critic's Choice Award); Portia Coughlan (Almeida); The Sugar Wife (Abbey, Dublin).

Television includes: Bodkin, Bloodlands, The Young Offenders.

Film includes: Christy, Lies We Tell, The Last Voyage of Demeter, The Little People, 1917, The Young Offenders, Unwelcomed.

Jacinta Whyte (Ensemble)

Theatre includes: Cats (International tour); Angela's Ashes the Musical (UK/ Ireland tour, winner of Broadway World Ireland Award for Best Actress); Titanic (UK/ International tour); Les Misérables (Palace); Miss Saigon (Theatre Royal Drury Lane); Blood Brothers (Phoenix); Aspects of Love (UK tour); The Card (Watermill, Newbury); Mary Makebelieve (Gate, Dublin); Brighton Beach Memoirs, Gypsy, One of Our Own, The Scatterin' (Gaiety, Dublin); Grease (UK tour); Private Lives, West Side Story, Cinderella (Everyman, Cheltenham); Anne of Green Gables, Grease (New Wolsey, Ipswich); A Slice of Saturday Night (Theatre Royal, Northampton); Annie (Victoria Palace, Original company).

Television includes: RTÉ TV own series Jacinta.

Film includes: My Left Foot, The Commitments, The Lilac Bus, A Green Journey.

Concerts include: The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tell Me on a Sunday, Jesus Christ Superstar (RTÉ Concert Orchestra); Friday Night is Music Night (BBC Concert Orchestra for Radio 2); Raymond Gubbay concerts (Royal Albert Hall/ Symphony Hall, Birmingham/ Glasgow Concert Hall/ Bridgewater Hall, Manchester); Musical World of Bond (Gothernberg Symphony Orchestra); Broadway the Concert (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra); Queen Symphonic, Symphonic Rock (Royal Philarmonic Orchestra); Beatlemania (Bergen Philarmonic Orchestra); ABBA Symphonic (Philarmonic of Flanders); Cole Porter You're the Tops (City of Birmingham Symphony); Brit Hits (Nuremberg Symphony).

Workshops include: Saving Grace, Top of the World – The James Cagney Musical, Grand Central.

Seán O'Casey, Writer

Seán O'Casey was born on the north side of Dublin in 1880 and lived through troubled and turbulent times; the 1913 Lock-out and Strike, the 1916 Easter Rising, the Anglo-Irish War and the Civil War. Seán O'Casey was involved directly with the Lock-out and Strike, starving with his fellow workers, and like many other Dubliners, he saw and was affected by the horrors of the Rising and the troubles that followed.

When he was forty he wrote three plays within three years depicting the lives of the slum dwellers he was familiar with; The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars. These plays now stand with the great plays of the Twentieth Century.

The most remarkable thing he had ever done, O'Casey later said, was to escape from the slums of Dublin. He managed to do this after his second play, Juno and the Paycock, was performed at The Abbey Theatre in 1924. Only then was he able to give up his job as labourer working on the roads. These three plays made his name, and he became known to an international audience. 

In 1926 he travelled to London to receive the Hawthornden Prize for Literature and also give publicity for The Plough and the Stars. He decided to stay. During re-casting he met and later married Eileen Carey. They moved to Devon in 1938 with his two sons Breon and Niall: a daughter, Shivaun, was born a year later. Niall tragically died of Leukaemia, aged 21, and Seán O'Casey died eight years later, aged 84.
 

Matthew Warchus, Director

Theatre includes: The Constituent, Lungs, Present Laughter, The Caretaker, The Master Builder, Future Conditional, Speed-the-Plow, OLD VIC: IN CAMERA – A Christmas Carol, Faith Healer, Three Kings, Lungs (The Old Vic); A Christmas Carol, Groundhog Day, The Norman Conquests (The Old Vic/ Broadway); Matilda The Musical (RSC/ West End/ Broadway/ International tour); Ghost the Musical (West End/ Broadway/ South Korea); La Bête (West End/ Broadway); God of Carnage (West End/ Broadway/ LA); Deathtrap, Endgame (West End); Our House, Much Ado About Nothing (West End/ UK tour); Boeing-Boeing (West End/ Broadway/ UK tour); The Lord of the Rings (West End/ Toronto); Buried Child, Volpone (National Theatre); Follies (Broadway); Life x 3 (National Theatre/ The Old Vic/ Broadway); True West (Donmar/ Broadway); The Unexpected Man (RSC/ West End/ Broadway); ‘Art' (Broadway/ West End/ Los Angeles); Hamlet, Henry V, The Winters Tale (RSC); Life Is A Dream, Betrayal, Death of a Salesman, The Plough and the Stars, Fiddler on the Roof, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, True West, Peter Pan (Leeds Playhouse); Master Harold And The Boys (Bristol Old Vic).

Opera includes: Falstaff, Così Fan Tutte (ENO); The Rake's Progress (ROH/ WNO).

Film includes: Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical, Pride — BIFA Best British Independent Film, Simpatico. 

Matthew has been Artistic Director of The Old Vic since 2014.

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