Sheffield Theatres Announce Casting for World Premiere of QUEEN COAL

Sheffield Theatres today announces the full cast for the world première of Bryony Lavery's play Queen Coal, which will take to the Studio stage from Thursday 30 October to Saturday 22 November.

Set in Yorkshire, decades after the miner's strike, Queen Coal examines the impact of the unrest on the relationships of Justine, Ian - her ex-husband and Maggie, his sister, as they see each other for the first time, since the strike tore them apart. Once devoted cohorts in the bitter fight for the collieries, Justine now finds herself distanced from her former life and family but still consumed with a desire to the change the world.

Leeds-born Kate Anthony best known for her role as Aunty Pam in Coronation Street plays Maggie. In her first role for Sheffield Theatres,Julia Ford, recently seen on television as Jenny Weatherill in BBC One's Happy Valley, plays Justine. David Hounslow last seen at the Crucible as Lennox in Macbeth, plays Ian.

A brand new play from the award-winning writer Bryony Lavery (Frozen, Beautiful Burnout), this powerful production is directed byRobert Shaw Cameron (A Christmas Carol, West Yorkshire Playhouse, White Open Spaces, Soho Theatre), with innovative stage design from Max Jones (Of Mice and Men, West Yorkshire Playhouse, The Winters' Tale, Regents Park Open Air Theatre). Jason Taylor(Lighting Designer) and Sebastian Frost (Sound Designer) complete the creative team.

Queen Coal, supported by Hill Dickinson Lawyers, opens in the Studio on Thursday 30 October and runs until Saturday 22 November. Tickets are on sale now, priced from £12.00 - £18.00 and are available from Sheffield Theatres' Box Office on 0114 249 6000 or online at sheffieldtheatres.co.uk. A transaction fee of £1.50 (£1.00 online) applies to all bookings made at the Box Office (excl. cash).

Kate Anthony plays Maggie. Her theatre work includes Untold Stories (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Rutherford and Son (national tour and St James Theatre), All the Way Home (The Lowry), The Cherry Orchard (Aldwych Theatre), The Mousetrap (St Martins Theatre), Perfect Pitch (Hull Truck Theatre and national tour) and Romeo and Juliet (Hull Truck Theatre). For television, her work includes

Father Brown, Little Miss Jocelyn, Judge John Deed, Totally Frank and As Time Goes By, and as Auntie Pam in Coronation Street. She recently took the leading role in her latest film - Wavelengths, which has already secured several industry awards.

Julia Ford plays Justine. Her theatre work includes A View from the Bridge, Macbeth (Liverpool Playhouse and Everyman), Mogadishu (Royal Exchange and Lyric Hammersmith), The Dysfunckshonalz! (Bush Theatre), The Life of Galileo, The Crucible and The Price of Coal (National Theatre), The Weir andThe Shallow End (Royal Court). For television, her work includes Happy Valley, The Paradise, Frankie, Red Riding Trilogy, Room at the Top, Moving On, Shameless, The Street, The Good Samaritan and Island at War; and for film, Radiator, Now is Good, Vinyl, The Park, Summer and Moth.

David Hounslow returns to Sheffield Theatres to play Ian. He previously appeared in Macbeth and Billy Budd. His theatre work includes This House(National Theatre) and The Empty Quarter (Hampstead Theatre Downstairs), Othello, Henry V, Coriolanus, The Wives' Excuse and Zenobia (RSC), Bent,Fuente Ovejuna (National Theatre), All of You Mine (Bush Theatre), First Person Shooter, Perpetua, My Night With Reg and Dealer's Choice(Birmingham REP), Alcestis (Northern Broadsides), Tales from Hollywood and Privates On Parade (Donmar Warehouse). For television, his work includes The Unknown Soldier, True Blues, Children of the North, The Cinder Path, Crimes and Punishment, Within Living Memory, Bomber, Always and Everyone, Other People's Children, North Square, Blackpool (series regular), Doctors (semi regular PC Brian Miles), Coronation Street (as semi regular Derek), The Bletchley Circle and Moving On; and for film, London Kills Me, Captives, Fever Pitch, The Man Who Knew Too Little, I Want You, The Flying Scotsman, The International, Defining Fay and Ginger and Rosa.

Bryony Lavery's plays include Her Aching Heart and A Wedding Story. Her play Frozen, won TMA Best Play Award, the Eileen Anderson Central Television Award and was produced on Broadway where it was nominated for four Tony Awards. She has collaborated three times with Frantic Assembly on Stockholm - which won the Wolff-Whiting award for best play of 2008, Beautiful Burnout Fringe First award at Edinburgh Festival, before touring the UK, New York, Australia and New Zealand; and most recently The Believers. Other work includes Last Easter, Kursk - with Sound and Fury at The Young Vic and Sydney Opera House; A Christmas Carol (Chichester, Birmingham and West Yorkshire Playhouse), Thursday (ETT/Brink in Adelaide and Canberra), Dirt (Studio Theater, Washington DC - nominated for Best New Play, Helen Hayes Award) and A Doll's House (Manchester Royal Exchange). Lavery is the Bruntwood Playwright Associate at Manchester Royal Exchange, an Associate Artist at Birmingham Rep, an honorary doctor of Arts at De Montfort University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Robert Shaw Cameron directs. His work includes First Person Shooter, Just So, Grass Routes: Cuttings (Birmingham REP), White Open Spaces (Soho Theatre, UK Tour & National Theatre of Sweden), A Florentine Tragedy, (Florence), 1.60.3600 (Regent's Park Studio & Young Vic), and Love at First (Edinburgh); and as Associate Director: Notes to Future Self, Arthur & George, Respect (Birmingham REP), A Christmas Carol (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Boyfriend (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre). He was previously Associate Director at Birmingham REP.

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