Photo Flash: Award Winning JERUSALEM Opens at Apollo Theatre, 2/10

Ian Rickson's Royal Court Theatre production of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play, and Mark Rylance collected the Best Actor Award for his universally celebrated performance as Johnny "Rooster" Byron.
 
The West End transfer of Jerusalem, which received its world premiere at the Royal Court in July, will run for a strictly limited 12-week season at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. Previewing from Thursday 28 January 2010, Jerusalem has its press night on Wednesday 10 February and is booking until Saturday 24 April 2010.  Designed by Ultz, with lighting by Mimi Jordan Sherin, sound by Ian Dickinson for Autograph and music by Stephen Warbeck, Jerusalem is produced in the West End by Sonia Friedman Productions, Royal Court Theatre Productions and Old Vic Productions, in association with Lee Menzies.

Mark Rylance (Johnny "Rooster" Byron) and Mackenzie Crook (Ginger) reprise their performances in the West End alongside original Royal Court cast members Jessica Barden (Pea), Tom Brooke (Lee), Alan David (The Professor), Aimeé-Ffion Edwards (Phaedra), Lennie Harvey (Marky), Gerard Horan (Wesley), Danny Kirrane (Davey), Charlotte Mills (Tanya), Sarah Moyle (Ms Fawcett), Harvey Robinson (Mr Parsons) and Barry Sloane (Troy Whitworth).
 
Jerusalem will offer 20 best price seats at £10 each, which will go on sale from the Box Office, in person only, from 10am on the day of each performance.
 
Jerusalem is a comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land.  On St George's Day, the morning of the local county fair, Johnny Byron is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants his dad to take him to the fair and Troy Whitworth wants to give him a serious kicking. Can he survive through til sunset?
 
Multi award-winning actor Mark Rylance was most recently in the West End playing Robert In Boeing-Boeing, a role he reprised on Broadway where he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.  Rylance can currently be seen at the Duchess Theatre in Samuel Beckett's Endgame.  As Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre his work as an actor included the title roles in Henry V and Hamlet as well as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Olivia in Twelfth Night. His other theatre work includes many productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and the Glasgow Citizens as well as True West for the Donmar Warehouse, Bloody Poetry for the Royal Court and The Maids for Shared Experience. In the West End he played Benedict in Much Ado about Nothing directed by Matthew Warchus, winning him the Olivier Award for Best Actor. His film and television work includes The Other Boleyn Girl, Prospero's Books, Angels and Insects, Leonardo and, most recently, David Kelly in C4's The Government Inspector for which he won the BAFTA Best Actor Award. 
 
Jez Butterworth's first play Mojo opened at the Royal Court in 1995 and subsequently won five drama awards including the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Most Promising Playwright and the Olivier Award for Best Comedy.  He returned to the Royal Court in 2002 with The Night Heron and The Winterling in 2006.  His films Mojo, starring Harold Pinter, and Birthday Girl, starring Nicole Kidman, were both shown at the Venice Film Festival prior to general release.  In 2007 he received the E.M. Forster Award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters.  In 2009 his play Parlour Song received its British premiere at The Almeida Theatre, directed by Ian Rickson.   2010 will see the international release of his feature film Fair Game starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts.

Prices:                                    £10 * - £49.50 and £20 restricted view, plus concessions
* 20 best price seats at £10 each, available in person only, at the box office from 10am on the day of the performance

Box Office:                            0844 412 4658 www.nimaxtheatres.com or
                                                Royal Court Theatre, 020 7565 5000 or            www.royalcourttheatre.com

Website:                                 www.jerusalemtheplay.com

Mark Rylance

The cast of Jerusalem

The cast of Jerusalem