Trevor Nunn is to direct Sienna Miller in Terence Rattigan's Flare Path in the first of a series of productions he will present as Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company. Opening on 10 March 2011 with previews from 4 March 2011 Flare Path is booking until 4 June 2011. Set and costumes are by Stephen Brimson Lewis. Flare Path is produced by Matthew Byam Shaw for Playful Productions, Tom McKitterick and the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company in association with ACT Productions Ltd. Further casting will be announced shortly as well as details of Trevor Nunn's other productions.
It is 1942. At the Falcon Hotel, on the edge of an airfield in Lincolnshire, Teddy, a young bomber pilot is celebrating a reunion with his actress wife Patricia. Events take an unexpected turn, when Peter a famous heartthrob film star arrives, and an urgent bombing mission over Germany is ordered. As the night gives way to dawn, Patricia finds herself at the centre of a passionate conflict of love and loyalty as unpredictable as the war in the skies.
Flare Path was first performed in the West End at the Apollo Theatre in 1942. It is based on Rattigan's own Bomber Command experiences when he served as a tail gunner during the Second World War. He later reworked Flare Path into a screenplay and in 1945 the re-titled The Way to the Stars starring Michael Redgrave was successfully released.
Sienna Miller trained at the
Lee Strasberg Institute in New York. She was last on stage at Broadway's Roundabout Theatre playing the title role in After Miss Julie. Her other New York theatre credits include Independence, The School for Scandal and Cigarettes and Chocolate. She was last on stage in the West End playing Celia in Shakespeare's As You Like It opposite
Helen McCrory and
Dominic West. Her many film credits include Layer Cake, Alfie, Casanova, Factory Girl, The Interview, Stardust, Camille, The Edge of Love, Hippie Hippie Shake, G.I. Joe and Yellow. On television her credits include Bedtime and Keen Eddie.
Trevor Nunn was the longest-serving Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the
Royal Shakespeare Company (1968 to 1986). During that time he directed most of the Shakespeare canon, as well as Nicholas Nickleby and Les Misérables. He returned to the RSC to direct King Lear and The Seagull. From 1997 to 2003 he was Director of the
National Theatre where his 21 productions included award-winning revivals of Troilus and Cressida, The Merchant of Venice, Summerfolk and The Cherry Orchard, as well as Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, and Anything Goes. He has directed the world premieres of
Tom Stoppard's Arcadia,
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, The Coast of Utopia and Rock 'n' Roll, and of Cats, Starlight Express, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard and The Woman in White by
Andrew Lloyd Webber. His more recent theatre work includes Hamlet and Richard II at The Old Vic, Timon of Athens and Skellig for the Young Vic, The Lady From the Sea for the Almeida, Scenes from a Marriage for the Belgrade, Coventry, A Little Night Music for the
Menier Chocolate Factory, in the West End and on Broadway, Cyrano de Bergerac for
Chichester Festival Theatre, Inherit the Wind for The Old Vic and Birdsong at the Comedy Theatre.
Born in 1911
Terence Rattigan became one of Britain's most important dramatists. His first play French Without Tears was a critical success and was soon followed by titles such as After the Dance, The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, The Deep Blue Sea and Separate Tables. Several of his plays were adapted for film and television. He was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1971 for services to the theatre. 2011 marks the centenary of the birth of
Terence Rattigan. As well as Flare Path, celebrations for Rattigan's centenary year will include several major revivals of his plays in London and beyond, including Cause Célèbre at The Old Vic, a new film of The Deep Blue Sea, a season of his films at the BFI, a special display at the British Library, BBC radio productions and the publication of new editions of his work.
Website: www.trh.co.uk
Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos
