FULL CAST ANNOUNCED FOR
WORLD PREMIÈRE OF CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD’S
A SINGLE MAN AT PARK THEATRE
Troupe, in association with Park Theatre, today announce the full cast for the world première of Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man, in a new adaptation from Simon Reade with direction by Philip Wilson. Theo Fraser Steele leads the cast as George, alongside Freddie Gaminara, Miles Molan, Rachel Pickup and Phoebe Pryce. The production opens in Park200 at Park Theatre on 21 October, with previews from 19 October, and runs until 26 November.
Troupe
in association with Park Theatre presents
the world première of a new adaptation of
A SINGLE MAN
Based on the book by CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
Adapted by SIMON READE
19 October – 26 November 2022
Director: Philip Wilson; Set and Costume Designer: Caitlin Abbott;Lighting Designer: Peter Harrison;
Sound Designer and Composer: Beth Duke; Movement Director: Natasha Harrison
“I make myself remember. I am afraid of forgetting. I will have to forget if I want to go on living.”
California, 1962. College professor George is grieving the death of his long-term partner Jim. As a middle-aged gay Englishman living in the Los Angeles suburbs, he is an outsider in every way. Haunted by his past and unable to move forward, we follow him on one very ordinary day. But for George, this is going to be a day like no other…
A Single Man features in the Guardian’s 100 Best Novels Written in English, where it is described as “a work of compressed brilliance”. Known to many through Tom Ford’s film, Christopher Isherwood’s masterpiece is now given a wry and compassionate retelling in Simon Reade’s new adaptation for the stage.
Powerful and sexy, A Single Man is a darkly amusing study of grief, love and loneliness from the celebrated writer of Goodbye to Berlin, the inspiration for Cabaret.
Theo Fraser Steele plays George. He will soon be seen in the new series of The Crown as Timothy Laurence. For theatre, his credits include This Island’s Mine (King’s Head Theatre), Don Quixote (RSC/Garrick Theatre), Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, Sense and Sensibility, Single Spies (Theatre by the Lake), Doctor Faustus, The Alchemist, Tamburlaine The Great (RSC), Woman in Mind (Salisbury Playhouse), Bloody Sunday (Scenes from the Saville Inquiry) (Tricycle Theatre), Guantanamo ‘Honour Bound to Defend Freedom’ (Tricycle Theatre/Ambassadors Theatre), The Drowned World (Traverse Theatre/Bush Theatre), Outside Now, The Moment Is A Gift That’s Why it’s Called The Present (Paines Plough), The Importance of Being Earnest (Australian tour/Savoy Theatre), Skylight (National Theatre/Vaudeville Theatre), The Shallow End (Royal Court/Duke of York’s Theatre), A Week With Tony (Finborough Theatre) and Amphitryon (Gate Theatre). For television, his credits include Grantchester, Victoria, Genie in the House, The Thick of It, My Family, Keen Eddie, Hex, Close and True, A Christmas Carol, Shockers: The Visitor and The Prince of Hearts; and for film: The Golden Compass, Mad About Mambo, Before You Go and Mrs Brown.
Freddie Gaminara plays Male Paramedic/Mr Strunk/Alex/Nurse/Bartender. For theatre, his credits include Light Falls (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); and for film: Red Joan and Brighton.
Miles Molan makes his professional debut as Kenny/Jim.
Rachel Pickup plays Charley. For theatre, her credits include Still Life (The Mill at Sonning), The Tempest, The Odyssey, For Services Rendered, Barefoot in the Park (Jermyn Street Theatre), Bedroom Farce (Rose Theatre, Kingston/Duke of York’s Theatre), Miss Julie, Love’s Labour’s Lost (Rose Theatre, Kingston), The 39 Steps (Criterion Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Troilus and Cressida, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Dr Foster, Paradox (RSC), Julius Caesar (RSC/Lyric Hammersmith), Hamlet (Birmingham Rep/EIF), King Lear (The Old Vic/UK tour), The Fall Guy, Time and the Conways (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), The Sea, Fortune’s Fool (Minerva Theatre, Chichester/UK tour), Twelfth Night (Theatr Clwyd), Home Truths, The Three Sisters (Birmingham Rep), All’s Well That Ends Well (Oxford Stage Company), Way Upstream (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), Present Laughter (St. James Theatre, New York), The Merchant of Venice (Lincoln Center Festival, New York/Shakespeare’s Globe/international tour), London Assurance, The Home Place, Breath, Play, Act Without Words, Dancing at Lughnasa, Airswimming (Irish Repertory Theatre, New York), Private Lives (Hartford Stage), King Lear (Theatre for a New Audience, New York), The Explorers’ Club (Manhattan Theatre Club, New York), Twelfth Night (Folger Theatre, Washington) and An Ideal Husband (Washington Shakespeare Theatre). For television, her credits include Sister Boniface Mysteries, The Beast Must Die, Grantchester, Madam Secretary, Elementary, Dietland, 50 Ways to Kill Your Lover, House of Anubis, Garrow’s Law, Small Island, Dogtown, Victoria and Albert, No Bananas, Jeffrey Archer: The Truth, Coupling and Relic Hunter; and for film: Wonder Woman, Schadenfreude, Chronic, AKA and Basil.
Phoebe Pryce plays Female Paramedic/Mrs Strunk/Maria/Doris. For theatre, her credits include: The False Servant (Orange Tree Theatre), The Night Watch, The Picture of Dorian Gray (UK tours), Cash Cow (Hampstead Theatre), About Leo (Jermyn Street Theatre), A Passage to India (Park Theatre/UK tour), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Octagon Theatre, Bolton/York Theatre Royal), The Merchant of Venice (Lincoln Center Festival, New York/Shakespeare’s Globe/international tour) and The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe).
Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) was among the most celebrated writers of his generation. He left Cambridge without graduating, worked as a tutor and a secretary, briefly studied medicine and then published his first novels, All the Conspirators and The Memorial. Between 1929 and 1939, he lived mainly abroad, including four years in Berlin, which inspired his novels Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, on which the musical Cabaret is based. He also wrote four plays and a travel book with the poet W. H. Auden. In 1939, Isherwood moved to America, where he settled in Hollywood, became a Hindu and wrote for the film studios. He took US citizenship in 1946. In America, he wrote five more novels, including Prater Violet, Down There on a Visit and A Single Man, and kept prodigious diaries. He collaborated with his spiritual teacher Swami Prabhavananda on a translation of the Bhagavad Gita and produced another travel book and a biography of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. In the late 1960s, he turned to autobiography; in Kathleen and Frank, Christopher and His Kind and My Guru and His Disciple, Isherwood openly articulated the gay identity he had only implied in his fiction. Amongst his last work is October, one month of his diary with drawings by his partner from 1953 onward, American painter Don Bachardy.
Simon Reade’s work for theatre includes Private Peaceful (US tour/UK tour), David Copperfield (Barn Theatre, Cirencester), An Elephant in the Garden (Poonamallee Productions), A Pure Woman (Dorchester Arts), Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain, A Room with a View, Moon Tiger (Theatre Royal Bath/UK tours), Bliss/Mutluluk (Arcola Theatre), Pride and Prejudice (UK tour), Twist of Gold (Polka Theatre), Strindberg’s Apartment (New Diorama Theatre), Toro! Toro! (Salisbury Playhouse), Midnight’s Children (RSC/Theater Trier), The Scarecrow and His Servant (Southwark Playhouse), Not the End of the World, The Mozart Question, Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark (Bristol Old Vic), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (TMA Award, Bristol Old Vic/Polka Theatre), Epitaph for the Official Secrets Act (RSC), and Tales from Ovid (RSC/Young Vic). Film and television credits include: Journey’s End, Private Peaceful and What You Will. Books include Dear Mr. Shakespeare: Letters to a Jobbing Playwright and Cheek by Jowl. He was previously Literary Manager at the Gate Theatre and the RSC, Artistic Director at Bristol Old Vic, Producer at Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Filter Theatre and Development Producer at BBC Television, Tiger Aspect Productions and Stolen Picture.
Director Philip Wilson’s work in theatre includesStarcrossed (Wilton’s Music Hall), The Boy with the Bee Jar (Hope Theatre), Perfect Nonsense,After the Dance (Theatre by the Lake), The Star, The Norman Conquests, Noises Off, Doctor Faustus, The Astonished Heart, Still Life (Liverpool Playhouse), As You Like It (Storyhouse, Chester), Beacons (Park Theatre), his own adaptations of Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales (Oxo Tower Bargehouse/Shoreditch Town Hall), The Three Lions (St. James Theatre/UK tour), How Many Miles to Babylon? (Lyric Theatre, Belfast), Toro! Toro! (UK tour), Twist of Gold(Polka Theatre),Sixty-Six Books (Bush Theatre/Westminster Abbey), The Importance of Being Earnest, Travesties (Birmingham Rep), If Love Were All, In Praise of Love (Minerva Theatre, Chichester), The Found Man (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), Un Uomo Trovato (Teatro della Limonaia, Florence), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Sheffield Theatres) and Breaking the Code (Northampton Theatre Royal). He was Artistic Director of Salisbury Playhouse from 2007-2011 where he directed The Game of Love and Chance, The Constant Wife, The Picture, Private Lives, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Winslow Boy, his own adaptation of J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, What the Butler Saw, People at Sea, Alphabetical Order and Corpse!; and directed and designed Blackbird, Faith Healer and Toro! Toro! – TMA Award nomination.