Photo Flash: ARCADIA At Duke Of York

David Leveaux will direct a cast including Samantha Bond, Nancy Carroll, Jessie Cave, Neil Pearson, Dan Stevens and Ed Stoppard in a new production of Tom Stoppard's multi award-winning play Arcadia. Previewing at the Duke of York's Theatre from 27 May, with press night on 11 June, Arcadia is currently booking until 12 September 2009. Set designs are by Hildegard Bechtler, costume design is by Amy Roberts, lighting is by Paul Anderson and sound is by Simon Baker. Arcadia will be presented in the West End by Sonia Friedman Productions, Robert G. Bartner and Roger Berlind.

April 1809, a stately home in Derbyshire.... Thomasina, a gifted pupil, proposes a startling theory, beyond her comprehension. All around her, the adults, including her tutor Septimus, are preoccupied with secret desires, illicit passions and professional rivalries. Two hundred years later, academic adversaries Hannah and Bernard are piecing together puzzling clues, curiously recalling those events of 1809, in their quest for an increasingly elusive truth.

The cast includes Samantha Bond (Hannah), Nancy Carroll (Lady Croom), Jessie Cave (Thomasina), Neil Pearson (Bernard), Dan Stevens (Septimus) and Ed Stoppard (Valentine). Further casting will be announced shortly.

Arcadia received its world premiere in 1993 at The National Theatre. Directed by Trevor Nunn, the production transferred to the West End and then to Broadway. Tom Stoppard went on to win both the Laurence Olivier Award and the New York Drama Critics' Best New Play Award.

Samantha Bond's extensive theatre credits include Donkeys' Years at the Comedy Theatre, A Woman of No Importance at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, Macbeth at the Albery Theatre, Amy's View for The National Theatre and on Broadway, The Memory of Water on tour and at the Vaudeville Theatre and Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Ambassadors Theatre. Samantha Bond is best known on film as Miss Moneypenny in Die Another Day, The World is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies and Goldeneye. She was also seen in A Bunch of Amateurs, which was released last year. Her many television appearances include Larkrise to Candleford, Hotel Babylon, Kavanagh QC, Murder Rooms and Distant Shore. Later this year Samantha Bond will be seen on C4 in The Queen, a series of five programmes documenting the monarch's fifty years on the throne.

Nancy Carroll's theatre credits include Waste for The Almeida Theatre, Coward, Cocktails and Cabaret for Chichester Festival Theatre and The Enchantment, Man of Mode, The Voysey Inheritance, The False Servant and The Talking Cure all for The National Theatre. For the Royal Shakespeare Company her credits include Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, As You Like It, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and The Winter's Tale. Her film credits include Iris and An Ideal Husband and on television she has been seen in Cambridge Spies, Doctors and Midsomer Murders.

Jessie Cave is making her West End debut as Thomasina in Arcadia. Her theatre credits include Robin Hood for Greenwich Theatre and Tartuffe and Noises Off for The Latymer Theatre. Her television credits are Cranford and Summerhill for the BBC. Her film credits are Inkheart and a leading role as Ron Weasley's girlfriend Lavender Brown in the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Neil Pearson's extensive theatre work includes Peter Hall's productions of Uncle Vanya for the Rose Theatre and Old Times at Richmond Theatre, Cloaca for the Old Vic, Benefactors at the Albery Theatre, Closer at the Shaftesbury Theatre, Summer and Smoke for Leicester Haymarket and David Leveaux' production of Thérèse Raquin for the Chichester Festival Theatre. His many television appearances include the male lead in forthcoming BBC series All The Small Things, Apparitions, Clapham Junction, The State Within, The Kindness of Strangers, The Booze Cruise, Trevor's World of Sport, three series of the multi award-winning Between the Lines for the BBC and six series of Channel 4's award-winning Drop The Dead Donkey. On film Pearson played Richard Finch, Bridget Jones' boss, in Bridget Jones' Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

Dan Stevens' theatre credits include Every Good Boy Deserves Favour for The National Theatre, The Romans in Britain for Sheffield Theatres, Peter Hall's productions of The Vortex at the Apollo Theatre, Hay Fever at the Haymarket Theatre, Much Ado About Nothing as well as As You Like It for which he was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award. His television appearances include Edward Ferris in the BBC's Sense and Sensibility, Nick Guest in The Line of Beauty and roles in Maxwell and Marple.

Ed Stoppard's theatre credits include On The Rocks for Hampstead Theatre, The Glass Menagerie at the Apollo Theatre, the title role in Hamlet for English Touring Theatre and The Merchant of Venice and The Seagull for Chichester Festival Theatre. His film work includes Mad Cow, Brideshead Revisited, Joy Division and the role of Henryk in Roman Polanski's The Pianist. On television his credits include Miss Marple at Bertram's Hotel, Tchaikovsky and French Revolution.

The first of Tom Stoppard's plays to be staged was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. His other plays include The Coast of Utopia, The Invention of Love, Jumpers, Hapgood, The Real Inspector Hound, Night and Day, Travesties and After Magritte. His adaptations include Schnitzler's Dalliance and Undiscovered Country. He has written new versions of Chekhov's The Seagull and Pirandello's Henry IV. His film scripts include The Human Factor, Empire of the Sun, Shakespeare in Love (co-written with Marc Norman) and Enigma. In 2006 Stoppard's multi award-winning Rock 'n' Roll opened at the Royal Court. The production, directed by Trevor Nunn, subsequently enjoyed a sell-out West End run as well as a season on Broadway produced by Sonia Friedman Productions.

InterNational Theatre director David Leveaux has previously directed Tom Stoppard's Jumpers for The National Theatre and The Real Thing at the Donmar Warehouse. Both productions transferred to the West End and then to Broadway. For the Almeida his productions are Harold Pinter's No Man's Land, Moonlight and Betrayal, as well as Neil LaBute's The Distance From Here. More recently he has directed Rudolf in Vienna, A Doll's House in Tokyo and Three Sisters for The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, as well as the Broadway revivals of Cyrano de Bergerac with Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner, The Glass Menagerie with Jessica Lange and Fiddler on the Roof. Leveaux' other Broadway credits include Nine with Antonio Banderas, Betrayal with Juliette Binoche, Electra with Zoë Wanamaker, Anna Christie with Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson and A Moon for the Misbegotten with Kate Nelligan. His other London Theatre credits include Sinatra Live at the London Palladium and Electra for the Donmar Warehouse.

Theatre: Duke of York's Theatre, St Martin's Lane, London WC2
Dates: 27 May - 12 September
Performances: Monday - Saturday at 7.30pm
Matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2.30pm
Box Office: 0870 060 6623
Tickets £15 - £49.50 (Previews 27 May -10 June - £10 off top three prices)
Website: www.arcadiatheplay.com

 

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