The Donmar Warehouse today announces full casting for Ola Ince’s production of Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Joining the previously announced BAFTA and Olivier Award-winning actor Monica Dolan, who will play Toni Lafayette, will be Jaimi Barbakoff (Rachael Kramer-Lafayette), Charles Furness (Rhys Thurston), Edward Hogg (Franz Lafayette), Steven Mackintosh (Bo Lafayette), Isabella Pappas (Cassidy Kramer-Lafayette), Orlando Roddy (Ainsley Kramer-Lafayette), Oliver Savell (Ainsley Kramer-Lafayette) and Tafline Steen (River Rayner).
So I thought, since we can’t do Europe this summer, why don’t the kids and I just do a little Southern History road trip? We’re going to drive back home through Mississippi, Louisiana – all those places – experience some of Daddy’s heritage.
The Lafayette family gather at their late father’s home in Arkansas to bury the hatchet and prepare the former plantation for its Estate Sale.
Until, that is, they make a discovery which changes everything.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins takes on the rich tradition of American family drama in his gripping play about ghosts and the legacies we are left with. Ola Ince directs Appropriate in its UK premiere at the Donmar.
Appropriate is the second production in Artistic Director Michael Longhurst’s first season at the Donmar Warehouse. Continuing its commitment to engaging new audiences, the Donmar is simplifying ticket access schemes with DONMAR DAILY RELEASE. This new scheme sees a minimum of 40 additional tickets released for sale every morning for performances seven days later. Audiences can sign up to receive information about productions and ticketing on the Donmar’s website, www.donmarwarehouse.com.
The Donmar’s successful free ticket scheme for those aged under 26, YOUNG+FREE, will continue with Appropriate, offering seats for performances across the new season with tickets released by ballot at the end of every month. YOUNG+FREE is funded through the generosity of audiences via the Donmar’s PAY IT FORWARD scheme. These donations have enabled the Donmar to allocate more than 18,000 free tickets to those aged under 26.
Before Appropriate takes to the Donmar stage, Michael Longhurst directs Europe by David Greig, with performances running from 20 June to 10 August. After Appropriate will be the full-length premiere of [BLANK] by Alice Birch, in a co-production with Clean Break Theatre Company. Further productions include Teenage Dick by Mike Lew, directed by Michael Longhurst and Far Away by Caryl Churchill, directed by Lyndsey Turner – both of which will go on sale in the autumn.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s (Writer) plays include Everybody (Signature Theatre; Pulitzer Prize-finalist), War (LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater), Gloria (Vineyard Theatre; Pulitzer Prize-finalist), Appropriate (Signature Theatre; Obie Award), An Octoroon (Soho Rep; Obie Award) and Neighbors (The Public Theater). A Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre, his most recent honours include the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright from the London Evening Standard, a London Critics Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, a MacArthur fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, the Benjamin Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation Theatre Award, the Steinberg Playwriting Award, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. He sits on the board of Soho Rep and, with Annie Baker, he is an associate co-director of the Hunter College MFA program in playwriting.
Ola Ince (Director) makes her directing debut at the Donmar Warehouse having previously worked as Assistant Director to Phyllida Lloyd on the Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy at King’s Cross and St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York. Previous directing credits include The Convert and Dutchman (Young Vic), Poet in da Corner (Royal Court), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (Gate Theatre), Start Swimming (Young Vic and Summerhall Edinburgh), White Sky (RWCMD & Gate Theatre), Rachel and The Soft of her Palm (Finborough Theatre). As Associate Director her credits include Tina – The Tina Tuner Musical (West End), Bugsy Malone (Lyric Hammersmith), Tipping the Velvet (Lyric Hammersmith and Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh) and Fog (UK Tour). As Assistant Director Ola’s credits include Dara (National Theatre), Porgy & Bess (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), A Taste of Honey (National Theatre) and Josephine & I (Bush Theatre). In 2011 Ola was the Finborough Theatre’s Resident Assistant Director and Senior Reader, as well as a Rose Bruford Directing Bursary recipient. In 2012 she was the Boris Karloff Bursary recipient, which allowed her to train under Sacha Wares. In 2015 Ola became a BBC Performing Arts Fellow and Resident Associate Director at the Lyric Hammersmith. In 2016 she became the Genesis Future Director Award winner and Artistic Associate at Lyric Hammersmith and Theatre Royal Stratford East. Ola is currently an Artistic Associate at the Royal Court and winner of the h100 Theatre & Performance Award.
Jaimi Barbakoff (Rachael Kramer-Lafayette) makes her Donmar Warehouse debut in Appropriate. Jaimi’s previous theatre credits include Daisy Pulls it Off (Watermill Theatre), Arsenic and Old Lace (Salisbury Playhouse), Chatroom/Citizenship (National Theatre/UK Tour), Making History (An Grianan Theatre), Market Boy (National Theatre), A Brief History of Helen of Troy (ATC/Soho Theatre), Precious Bane (Pentabus), Three Tall Women and Death and the Maiden (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). Television credits include Born to Kill, Casualty, Doctors, Black Mirror: 15 Million Merits, Bad Girls, EastEnders, Holby City, Last Rights, The Bill and Trial and Retribution, film credits include Pride and Vagabond Shoes.
Monica Dolan (Toni Lafayette) returns to the Donmar Warehouse in Appropriate having previously appeared in The Same Deep Water as Me. Her theatre credits include All About Eve (West End) for which she received the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, The B*easts, Nassim and Chalet Lines (Bush Theatre), Plaques & Tangles, The Twits, Birth of a Nation, Sliding with Suzanne and Glory Living (Royal Court), King Lear, The Seagull, The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC), Jane Eyre (Shared Experience and West End), Macbeth (Out of Joint), Mary Stuart (Nuffield, Southampton), She Stoops to Conquer, A Laughing Matter and The Walls (National Theatre), Hayfever (Theatre Royal Bath and West End) and The Glass Menagerie (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh). Monica’s television credits include Black Mirror: Smithereens, Urban Myths: Bleak House Guest, A Very English Scandal for which she was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress, Vanity Fair, Strike: The Silkworm, W1A, Inside No. 9, Catastrophe, The Witness for the Prosecution, Neil Gaiman’s Likely Stories, The Casual Vacancy, Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge, The Escape Artist, Complicit, Call the Midwife, Coming Up: Spoof or Die, Appropriate Adult for which she received the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress, U Be Dead, Excluded, Inspector Banks, Occupation, Midsomer Murders, The History of Mr Polly, Poirot, The Commander, Wallis & Edward, Tipping the Velvet, Judge John Deed and The Gift. Monica’s film credits include Days of Bagnold Summer, Rialto, Official Secrets, Eye in the Sky, Pride, The Falling, Alpha Papa, Sightseers, The Arbor, Never Let Me Go, Within the Whirlwind, King Lear, Topsy Turvy and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Charles Furness (Rhys Thurston) makes his Donmar Warehouse debut in Appropriate. Charles’s theatre credits include Isaac Came Home from the Mountain (Theatre503). His television credits include Sherlock, Enfield Haunting, The Passing Bells, 24: Live Another Day, Jamaica Inn and Silent Witness. Film credits include The Sense of an Ending and The Whale.
Edward Hogg (Franz Lafayette) makes his Donmar Warehouse debut in Appropriate. His theatre credits include As You Like It (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Romeo and Juliet, The God of Soho, Measure for Measure, The Tempest and The Storm (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Rest is Silence (Brighton Festival 2012/Newcastle Northern Stage/London 2012 Festival), Our Class and The Pillowman (National Theatre), Pictures from an Exhibition, Our Country’s Good, Cressida, Noises Off and Desire Under the Elms (Young Vic), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Almeida Theatre), The Dybukk (King’s Head Theatre), Woyzeck (St Anne’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, New York), Rock’n’Roll (Royal Court/West End), Woyzeck (Gate Theatre), Loot (Bristol Old Vic), The Firework-Makers Daughter (RSC) and My Father’s Son (Sheffield Crucible). For television Edward’s credits include Taboo, Harlots, Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands, Indian Summers, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, The Borgias, Dead Boss, Misfits, Silent Witness, Doctors, The Bermuda Triangle: Beneath the Waves, Celeb and Heartbeat. Film credits include Scarborough, Once Upon a Time in Warsaw, Adult Life Skills, Kill Your Friends, The Program, Jupiter Ascending, Mary Queen of Scots, Imagine, The Comedian, 2013, Anonymous, Isle of Dogs, Ollie Kepler’s Expanding Purple World, Bunny and the Bull, White Lightnin’, Brothers of the Head, Song of Songs, Alfie and Nicholas Nickleby.
Steven Mackintosh (Bo Lafayette) makes his Donmar Warehouse debut in Appropriate. His theatre credits include In a Dark Dark House (Almeida), My Zinc Bed (Royal Court), The Woman in Black (West End), Cops (Greenwich Theatre), Look Look (West End), The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline (National Theatre UK Tour), Entertaining Strangers (National Theatre) Brighton Beach Memoirs (National Theatre and West End) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bush Theatre). For television Steven’s credits include Wanderlust, Lucky Man, A Song for Jenny, From Here to Here, The Game, Thirteenth Tale, What Remains, The Pavement Psychologist, Inside Man, The Jury, The Lost Christmas, Camelot, Luther, Mo Mowlam, Criminal Justice, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, Shiny Shiny Bright New Hole in My Heart, England Expects, The Other Boleyn Girl, Swallow, Sweet Revenge, Care, Undercover Heart, Our Mutual Friend, Prime Suspect, Karaoke, A Dark Adapted Eye, Midnight Movie, The Buddha of Suburbia, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Inspector Morse, Newshounds, The Luck Child and The Browning Version. For film his credits include The Postcard Killings, Rocketman, Modern Life is Rubbish, Urban Hymn, A Hundred Streets, Bone in the Throat, Set Fire to the Stars, Our Robot Overlords, Kick Ass II, The Sweeney, Elfie Hopkins & the Gammons, Scouting Book for Boys, Underworld III, The Daisy Chain, Good, The Escapist, Sugar House Lane, Small Engine Repair, Firstborn, Paint it Yellow, Underworld: Evolution, The Secret Life of Words, The Aryan Couple, The Jacket, Tulse Luper Suitcases, The Mother, Far From China, The Criminal, Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Land Girls, It’s Good to Talk, House of America, Different for Girls, The Grotesque, Blue Juice, Return of the Native, Princess Caraboo, London Kills Me, Memphis Belle and Prick Up Your Ears.
Isabella Pappas (Cassidy Kramer-Lafayette) makes her Donmar Warehouse debut in Appropriate. Theatre credits include Hamlet (Lyric Hammersmith), Bring It On (Southwark Playhouse), Musical Bites (The Other Palace), Terror At The Sweetshop (Theatre Royal Stratford East), 13 The Musical (Ambassadors Theatre/Minack Theatre), In The Heights (Stockwell Playhouse ), Annie (UK Tour), The Nether (Royal Court/West End). Television credits include Almost Never, Abstract the Art of Design, Paranoid and Robbie Williams: One Night at The Palladium.
Orlando Roddy (Ainsley Kramer-Lafayette) makes his Donmar Warehouse and professional debut in Appropriate.
Oliver Savell (Ainsley Kramer-Lafayette) makes his Donmar Warehouse and professional debut in Appropriate.
Tafline Steen (River Rayner) makes her Donmar Warehouse debut in Appropriate. Tafline’s theatre credits include Pride and Prejudice (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), King Charles III (Almeida Theatre/West End/Broadway), PLAY On (Almeida Theatre), King Lear (Citizen’s Theatre) and The Possibilities (Tron Theatre/Kings Head). Television credits include The Athena, Casualty and Obsession: Dark Desires.
Donmar Warehouse, 41 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9LX
www.donmarwarehouse.com
Box Office: 020 3282 3808 (No booking fees, £1 postage fee may apply)
Telephone Mon-Sat 10am-6pm
In person Mon-Sat, 10am-curtain up (with some exceptions, see website)
APPROPRIATE
Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Friday 16 August – Saturday 5 October 2019
PRESS NIGHT: Thursday 22 August 2019
Director Ola Ince
Designer Fly Davis
Lighting Designer Anna Watson
Sound Designer Donato Wharton
Casting Director Julia Horan CDG
TICKET PRICES
£10 | £20 | £30 | £40
PREVIEW PRICES
£10 | £17.50 | £27.50 | £37.50
PREVIEW DISCOUNTS APPLY ON FOLLOWING DATES
Appropriate Friday 16 August – Tuesday 20 August 2019
YOUNG+FREE
YOUNG+FREE tickets for under 26s released by ballot. Sign up at www.donmarwarehouse.com
DONMAR DAILY RELEASE
Additional tickets on sale, every day. Every morning at 10am, a minimum of 40 tickets will be released for the performances on that day the following week. Tickets will be available online across the auditorium at every price band, starting at £10.
CONCESSIONS
For over 60s, £40 tickets reduced to £32.50 and £30 tickets reduced to £25 (matinees only). Must be booked in advance.
ACCESS
The Donmar Warehouse is fully wheelchair accessible. Guide dogs and hearing dogs are welcome in the auditorium. There is an infrared system in the main auditorium and there is also a hearing loop in the box office.
ASSISTED PERFORMANCES
If you require a companion to attend the Donmar, their ticket will be free. To book call 020 3282 3808 or email access@donmarwarehouse.com
For all other access enquiries or bookings call 020 3282 3808
CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES – 7.30PM (captioned by Stagetext)
Appropriate Monday 23 September
AUDIO-DESCRIBED PERFORMANCE - 2.30PM (audio-described by Vocaleyes)
(TOUCH TOUR AT 1.00PM)
Appropriate Saturday 28 September
TRANSPORT & PARKING
Tubes: Covent Garden, Leicester Sq, Charing Cross, Holborn, Tottenham Court Road
Buses: Destination Leicester Sq.14, 19, 24, 29, 38, 176
Parking: Masterpark
