FULL CAST ANNOUNCED FOR
SHEFFIELD THEATRES AND OUT OF JOINT’S CO-PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD PREMIÈRE OF KATE BOWEN’S CLOSE QUARTERS
STUDIO
A Sheffield Theatres and Out of Joint Co-Production
World Première
CLOSE QUARTERS
By Kate Bowen
25 October – 10 November 2018
Director: Kate Wasserberg; Designer: Max Jones; Lighting Designer: Sarah Jane Shiels
Composer & Sound Designer: Dyfan Jones
Casting Directors: Sooki McShane CDG & Lucy Jenkins CDG; Fight/movement Director: RC-Annie LTD
Sheffield Theatres and Out of Joint today announce the full cast for their co-production of the world première of Kate Bowen’s Close Quarters. Kate Wasserberg directs Ruby Barker (Private Sarah Findlay), Bradley Banton(Sergent Adeyemi), Chloe-Ann Tylor (Private Alison Cormack), Dylan Wood (Lance Corporal Brian Armstrong), Sophie Melville (Private Clare Davies) and Kathryn O’Reilly (Captain Anna Sands). The production opens on 29 October, with previews from 25 October, and runs until 10 November.
“You were the only folk out of five thousand who got through – you’re legit badass.”
Cormack, Findlay and Davies are the elite. They are the first generation of female soldiers to serve in the British infantry in close combat roles, ever. They’ve aced physical tests only 5% of female soldiers can pass; they’ve been trained to shoot, fight and kill. They’ve proven their exceptional skill and discipline – while everyone around them questions whether they should even be allowed to serve. And now they’re about to join the action.
Kate Bowen’s taut, funny and powerful play follows three very different, pioneering young women in the world’s most dangerous workplace.
Kate Bowen’s debut play Shutter Speed was developed and workshopped by the National Theatre of Scotland/Dundee Rep company in 2011. Her other writing includes Super Sunday, a Five Minute Theatre piece for National Theatre Scotland, the audio play The Prize Fighter (part of the Traverse 50 programme at the Traverse Theatre), and The Lawyers for Play, Pie and a Pint’s Three Minute Theatre project in Glasgow. Bowen was winner of the Playwright’s Studio Scotland New Writer’s Award in 2012, awarded a place on the Channel 4 Playwright’s Scheme Bursary to work with Out of Joint throughout 2017, and last year given a place on the National Theatre of Scotland’s Starter for Ten scheme to develop a new project, Stunt.
Ruby Barker plays Private Sarah Findlay. Her theatre work includes York Mystery Plays (York Minster) and Mankind (Hidden Theatre Company). For television, her work includes Wolfblood; and for film, The Banana Dream.
Bradley Banton plays Sergent Adeyemi. His theatre work includes The Island (Linbury Studio). His television work includes Vera; and for film, His House and Judy.
Chloe-Ann Tylor plays Private Alison Cormack. For theatre, her work includes Hansel and Gretel, Trainspotting(Citizens Theatre), The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), The Merchant of Venice (Bard in the Botanics) and Titus Andronicus (Dundee Rep).
Dylan Wood plays Lance Corporal Brian Armstrong. For theatre, his work includes Teddy (The Watermill Theatre and UK tour), Electric Eden (Shanghai Arts Festival/Not Too Tame Theatre Company) and Julius Caesar(Edinburgh Festival); and a short film, In the Night.
Sophie Melville plays Private Clare Davies. For theatre her work includes Iphigenia in Splott (Sherman Theatre, National Theatre and Edinburgh Festival), Romeo and Juliet (Sherman Theatre), Under Milk Wood (Theatr Clwyd), The Shape of Things, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, See How They Run (Theatre by the Lake) and Romeo and Juliet (Sam Wanamaker Festival).
Kathryn O’Reilly plays Captain Anna Sands. Her theatre work includes Arms and the Man (Watford Palace Theatre), Caught, hamlet is dead. no gravity (Arcola Theatre), Rift (Brewhouse Theatre), A Christmas Carol (Trafalgar Studios), Lover on the Tracks (Soho Theatre), Oedipus (national tour), Don Juan (Rose Theatre), and A View from Islington North and Our Country’s Good (Out of Joint). Her television work includes Random, Call the Midwife, Rough Justice and The Watcher; and for film, The Little Stranger, Zebra Crossing and Halal Harry.
Kate Wasserberg is Artistic Director of Out of Joint for whom she has directed Rita, Sue and Bob, Too (Bolton Octagon, Royal Court Theatre and tour). She was the founding Artistic Director of The Other Room in Cardiff, where her directing credits included The Dying of Today, Play/Silence, Sand and Seanmhair. Her other directing credits include The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Glengarry Glen Ross, Roots, Gaslight, The Glass Menagerie and A History of Falling Things (as Associate Director for Theatre Clwyd), All My Sons and Insignificance (Theatre Clwyd), The Barnbow Canaries (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Ten Weeks (Paines Plough), The Knowledge (Dirty Protest at the Royal Court Theatre) and Saturday Night Forever (Aberystwyth Arts Centre/Edinburgh).
Twitter: @crucibletheatre @SheffieldLyceum