Final casting is announced for the London premiere of Christopher Durang’s Tony Award-winning Best Play comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, directed by Walter Bobbie (Tony award winner for ‘Chicago’).
Joining the previously announced two time Olivier award-winner Janie Dee are Michael Maloney (‘The Crown’), Rebecca Lacey, Charlie Maher, Sara Powell and Lukwesa Mwamba.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike will play an 8-week season at Charing Cross Theatre (Thom Southerland, Artistic Director, Steven M. Levy, Managing Director) from Friday 5 November - Saturday 8 January.
It was previously scheduled to open in March 2020 and had started rehearsals when all theatres were forced to close five days prior to its first preview.
Press Night: Monday 15 November at 7.30pm
Vanya and his sister Sonia live a quiet life in the Pennsylvania farmhouse where they grew up. But their sister Masha escaped many years ago and became a famous movie star. Masha returns unannounced with her twenty-something toy boy, Spike, and so begins a And so begins a very particular weekend.
Christopher Durang’s irresistible comedy is one of the most lauded Broadway plays of recent years. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike blends Chekhov’s famous ennui with the modern-day concerns of celebrity, social networking, planetary upheaval and the troubling onset of middle age, into a beloved comedy.
Janie Dee is one of the UK’s most versatile actors. She won the three most prestigious awards in British Theatre; the Olivier Award, the Evening Standard Award and Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress in a Play, as well as the Obie and Theatre World Best Newcomer Award in New York, for her hilarious and heartbreaking performance as Jacie Triplethree in Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘Comic Potential’. She also received the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her performance as Carrie Pipperidge in Nicholas Hytner’s acclaimed production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘Carousel’ at the National Theatre and the TMA UK Theatre Award 2013 for Best Performance in a Musical for her performance as Dolly Levi in ‘Hello, Dolly!’ at Curve, Leicester. Janie recently completed a critically acclaimed run playing the title role in Linda by Penelope Skinner at Manhattan Theatre Club, NYC, for which she was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play, and has just starred as Phyllis Rogers Stone in Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s ‘Follies’ at the National Theatre opposite Imelda Staunton as Sally Durant Plummer and Philip Quast as Benjamin Stone. Janie has been nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical Performance and the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in ‘Follies’. She is currently playing Mme Dubonnet in ‘The Boyfriend’ at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
Michael Maloney has played three British Prime Ministers on film and TV: Ted Heath in ’The Crown’, John Major in ‘Margaret: Long Walk To Finchley’ and Sir Robert Peel in ‘The Young Victoria. In an extensive stage career he has played lead roles including Hamlet, Prince Hal and Romeo and appeared numerous times with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Donmar Wareheouse and National Theatre.
Rebecca Lacey is best known for her TV roles as Irene Stuart in ‘Monarch of the Glen’, the feisty Dr. George Woodman in ‘Casualty’, and ditzy but kind-hearted Hilary in ‘May to December’. She has appeared in a number of theatre productions including playing Siobhan in ‘Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ at the National Theatre and West End transfer, a season with Alan Ayckbourn, in Terry Johnson’s ‘Dead Funny’ in the West End and ‘Amy’s View’ by David Hare.
Charlie Maher was last seen on stage in ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at The Arcola. He appeared in Landmark’s highly succesful production of ‘Asking for It’ at the Everyman in Cork, and in its remount at the Abbey Theatre. Other recent theatre appearances include Rough Magic’s production of ‘Melt’ as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Sarah Powell was Lady Pembroke in ‘The Madness of George III” (Nottingham Playhouse) and Queen Elizabeth in ‘Richard III” (Arcola).
Lukwesa Mwamba was Callie in the Amazon TV series ‘Carnival Row’.
Director: Walter Bobbie. Set Designer: David Korins. Costume Designer: Emily Rebholz. Sound Designer/Original Music: Mark Bennett. Casting: Ginny Schiller.
Producers: Steven M. Levy and Vaughan Williams for Charing Cross Theatre Productions Limited and Joey Parnes.
Christopher Durang (playwright)
Christopher Durang is a playwright whose plays include ‘A History of the American Film’ (Tony nomination, Best Book of a Musical, 1978), ‘The Actor’s Nightmare’, ‘Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You’ (Obie award; off-Bway run 1981-83), ‘Beyond Therapy’ (on Broadway in 1982, with Dianne Wiest and John Lithgow), ‘Baby with the Bathwater’ (Playwrights Horizons, 1983), ‘The Marriage of Bette and Boo’ (Public Theatre, 1985; Obie award, Dramatists Guild Hull Warriner Award), ‘Laughing Wild’ (Playwrights Horizons, 1987), ‘Durang/Durang’ (an evening of six plays at Manhattan Theatre Club, 1994, including the Tennessee Williams’ parody, ‘For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls’), ‘Sex and Longing’ (Lincoln Center Theatre production at the Cort Theatre, 1996, starring Sigourney Weaver), and ‘Betty’s Summer Vacation’ (Playwrights Horizons, 1999; Obie award). His most recent works are ‘Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge’, which premiered at City Theatre in Pittsburgh in 2002. And the musical ‘Adrift in Macao’, with music by Peter Melnick and book and lyrics by Durang, which premiered at New York Stage and Film in summer 2002. Durang is also a performer, and acted with E. Katherine Kerr in the N.Y. premiere of ‘Laughing Wild’, and with Jean Smart in the L.A. production.
Walter Bobbie (director)
As a performer, Bobbie played Roger in the Broadway production of ‘Grease’ in 1972. He also starred on Broadway as Nicely-Nicely Johnson in the 1992 revival of ‘Guys and Dolls’, for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical. In 1993 he wrote the book for, and directed, the Roundabout Theatre production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein revue ‘A Grand Night for Singing’, for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical. He then directed the 1996 Broadway revival of ‘Chicago’ with Ann Reinking and Bebe Neuwirth. Bobbie’s 1996 revival of ‘Chicago’ was inspired by his own staged concert production at City Center Encores!. The concert was a hit, and the musical moved directly to Broadway with its original Encores! cast. He won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for Chicago. Bobbie next directed the Broadway productions of the stage musical ‘Footloose’ in 1998, (he also co-wrote the book), the Roundabout Theater production of ‘Twentieth Century’ with Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche, the 2005 ‘Sweet Charity’ revival with Christina Applegate, and ‘High Fidelity’ in 2006. The musical ‘White Christmas’ which he directed had limited runs on Broadway in November 2008 and again in November 2009. Bobbie received the 2009 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Director of a Musical.
Steven M. Levy and Vaughan Williams
for Charing Cross Theatre Productions Limited and Joey Parnes.present
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
by Christopher Durang
Directed by Walter Bobbie
Charing Cross Theatre
The Arches
Villiers Street
London WC2N 6NL
www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk
Box office: 08444 930650
Friday 5 November -
Saturday 8 January
Press Night:
Monday 15 November at 7.30pm
Performances:
Monday to Saturday at 7.30pm
Wednesday and Saturday at 2.30pm
Ticket prices:
£19.50 - £39,.50
Upgrade your ticket to include a glass of bubbly and a programme for just £7.50
A booking fee applies to phone and internet orders; no booking fee to
personal callers
The box office is open from 2 hours
before curtain time on performance days for personal callers
