Photo Coverage: First Look At West End CHIMERICA!

The Headlong and Almeida Theatre's five-star co-production of Lucy Kirkwood's new play Chimerica has transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre for a strictly limited 12-week run. With booking in the West End to 19 October 2013, Lyndsey Turner's production of Chimerica received its premiere earlier this year at The Almeida Theatre where it has subsequently been acclaimed by critics and audiences alike.

The cast is Claudie Blakley, Stephen Campbell Moore, Elizabeth Chan, Vera Chok, Karl Collins, Trevor Cooper, Nancy Crane, Sean Gilder, Sarah Lam, Andrew Leung, David K. S. Tse and Benedict Wong.

Tiananmen Square, 1989. As tanks roll through Beijing and soldiers hammer on his hotel door, Joe - a young American photojournalist - captures a piece of history. When a cryptic message is left in a Beijing newspaper more than 20 years later, Joe is driven to discover the truth behind the unknown hero he captured on film. Who was he? What happened to him? And could he still be alive?

Lucy Kirkwood's plays are The Small Hours, co-written with Ed Hime for Hampstead Theatre, Beauty and The Beast for The National Theatre, Bloody Wimmin for the Tricycle's Women, Power and Politics season, It Felt Empty When the Heart Went at First But It is Alright Now for Clean Break Theatre Company at the Arcola, Guns or Butterfor The Union Theatre Terror Festival, Psychogeography and Tinderbox for the Bush Theatre an Grady Hot Potatofor Bedlam Theatre. Kirkwood adapted Hedda Gabler for the Gate Theatre and has written for C4's Skins. Her playNSFW opened at the Royal Court in 2012, directed by Simon Godwin.

Lyndsey Turner's Royal Court production of Posh completed its run in the West End in August 2012 and her production of Philadelphia, Here I Come! ran at the Donmar Warehouse last year. Turner's other productions for the Royal Court includes Contractions, A Miracle and Our Private Life. She is Associate Director at Sheffield Theatres where her work includes Alice and The Way of the World. Her other theatre credits include Edgar And Annabel and There Is A War for The National Theatre, Joseph K and Nocturnal for the Gate, My Romantic Historyfor Traverse, Bush, Sheffield Theatres and The Lesson for the Arcola.

Photo credit: Johan Persson and Es Devlin

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