LAURA LINNEY TO MAKE LONDON THEATRE DEBUT IN
ELIZABETH STROUT’S
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON
DIRECTED BY RICHARD EYRE
CLAIRE SKINNER
JOINS OPHELIA LOVIBOND, UKWELI ROACH AND
SION DANIEL YOUNG IN BARNEY NORRIS’S
NIGHTFALL
DIRECTED BY LAURIE SANSOM
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON
Laura Linney will make her London Theatre debut in Pulitzer Prize-winning Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton, directed by Richard Eyre at the Bridge Theatre. Running from 2 – 23 June 2018 with opening night on 6 June at 7pm, this haunting dramatic monologue is adapted by Rona Munro from Strout’s 2016 New York Times best-selling short novel of the same name. My Name is Lucy Barton will be designed by Bob Crowley. For this strictly limited 3 week run, evening performances are Monday to Saturday at 7.45pm with Saturday matinees at 2.30pm.
Unsteady after an operation, Lucy Barton wakes to find her mother sitting at the foot of her bed. She hasn’t seen her in years, and her visit brings back to Lucy her desperate rural childhood, and her escape to New York. As she begins to find herself as a writer, she is still gripped by the urgent complexities of family life.
Laura Linney and Richard Eyre are reunited for this production following their previous collaborations – on stage Eyre directed Linney in a Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and on screen he directed her in his and Charles Wood’s adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s The Other Man.
Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning Laura Linney will make her London stage debut as Lucy Barton. On Broadway she made her debut in Six Degrees of Separation and subsequently played Nina in The Seagull, Thea Elvsted in Hedda Gabler, Yelena Andreyevna in Uncle Vanya, Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, La Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses and most recently alternated the roles of Regina Hubbard Giddens and Birdie Hubbard in The Little Foxes for the Manhattan Theatre Club. On film she made her screen debut in Lorenzo’s Oil and was most recently seen in The Dinner. Her extensive film credits also include The Truman Show, Kinsey, Sully, Primal Fear, Hyde Park on Hudson, You Can Count on Me and Mystic River. Her many small screen credits include Tales of the City, The Big C which she also produced, Frasier, and most recently Ozark for Netflix with a second series set for later this year.
Elizabeth Strout’s debut novel was Amy and Isabelle which was subsequently adapted into a film for HBO. Her further writing credits are Abide with Me, Olive Kitteridge which was adapted into an Emmy award-winning mini-series also for HBO, The Burgess Boys, My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible.
Rona Munro has written extensively for stage, radio, film and television including the award-winning trilogy The James Plays for the National Theatre of Scotland, the National Theatre and the Edinburgh International Festival. Her other theatre writing credits include Scuttlers for the Royal Exchange Theatre, Iron and The Last Witch for the Edinburgh International Festival and Little Eagles for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Richard Eyre is a multi award-winning theatre, film, opera and television Director. Eyre was Director of the National Theatre from 1988-1997 and alongside his numerous theatrical awards was the recent recipient of the Companion of Honour. His Bristol Old Vic production of A Long Day’s Journey into Night has recently transferred to Wyndham’s Theatre.
N I G H T F A L L
Claire Skinner (Jenny) will join the previously announced Ophelia Lovibond (Lou), Ukweli Roach (Pete)and Sion Daniel Young (Ryan) in the world premiere of Barney Norris’s Nightfall. Directed by Laurie Sansom, Nightfall will now run at the Bridge Theatre from 28 April – 26 May 2018, with press night on 8 May 2018.
On a farm outside Winchester, Ryan struggles to make a living off the land. His sister Lou has returned home after the death of their father to support Jenny, their formidable mother. Not so long ago, when a neighbour’s Labrador strayed onto the farm, their dad reached for his shotgun. Now, when Lou’s boyfriend Pete reappears, flush with money from his job at an oil refinery, Jenny fights to hold her children to the life she planned for them.
Claire Skinner’s theatre credits include Blurred Lines, Mrs Affleck, Winter’s Tale and Othello all for the National Theatre, Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre and most recently Prism and Rabbit Hole, both at Hampstead Theatre. She also performed in the critically acclaimed The Father for Theatre Royal Bath which transferred to The Tricycle and on to the Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End. She also garnered an Olivier Award nomination and won a Critic’s Circle Award for her performance in the Donmar Warehouse’sThe Glass Menagerie. On television, she is best known as Sue Brockman from the BBC’s Outnumbered for which she was nominated for a Best Comedy Performance and Best TV Comedy Actress at the BAFTAs and British Comedy Awards respectively. She can currently be seen on ITV’s new drama Next Of Kin. Other credits include roles in Power Monkeys, Inside No.9, Critical, Playhouse Presents: Mr Understood, Silk and Doctor Who.
Ophelia Lovibond is best known on television for playing Izzy Gould in the BBC’s W1A and was last on stage in Richard Eyre’s production of The Stepmother at Chichester Festival Theatre. Her other theatre credits include The Libertine at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and The Effect for Sheffield Theatres. Her other television credits include Hooten & the Lady, Elementary, Inside No 9, Mr Sloane and Nathan Barley. Her films include Tommy’s Honor, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Man Up, Guardians of the Galaxy, A Single Shot, Gozo, Mr Popper’s Penguins, No Strings Attached, 4.3.2.1, Chatroom, London Boulevard, Nowhere Boy, Shadows in the Sun and Oliver Twist.
Ukweli Roach’s theatre credits include Romeo and Juliet and Helen, both for Shakespeare’s Globe and 5, 6, 7, 8 for the Royal Court. His television credits include Humans, Hard Sun, Blindspot, The Royals, Grantchester and Silk. His film credits include Streetdance 3D, One Day and Venus and the Son.
Sion Daniel Young’s theatre credits include Killology for the Royal Court, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and War Horse for the National Theatre, Mametz and The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning for the National Theatre Wales, The Welsh Boy for Theatre Royal, Bath, and Llwyth for the Sherman Theatre. His television credits include Commoners, Hinterland, Our World War, Casualty and Gwaith Cartref. On film his credits include Another Me, Private Peaceful and Daisy Chain.
Upon graduating from university, Barney Norris founded Up In Arms Theatre Company, of which he is the co-Artistic Director. His first play Visitors ran at the Arcola Theatre before transferring to the Bush Theatre, winning him the 2014 Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright. His other full-length plays are Eventide, Echo’s End and While We’re Here. Norris is the author of a bestselling novel, Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain, and a book on theatre: To Bodies Gone: The Theatre of Peter Gill. His second novel, Turning For Home, was published this month.
As Chief Executive/Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Scotland Laurie Sansom directed Rona Munro’s The James Plays which were co-presented by the Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain and toured the world. Sansom was previously Artistic Director of Royal & Derngate, Northampton, where he directed the UK premiere of Tennessee Williams’ Spring Storm and Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond The Horizon and The Festival of Chaos for London 2012. He was also Alan Ayckbourn’s Associate Director at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.
LISTINGS
Address: Bridge Theatre, 3 Potters Fields Park, London, SE1 2SG
Box Office: 0843 208 1846 or [email protected] (7p/minute plus standard network rate)
Tickets for My Name is Lucy Barton are priced from £15 to £55 with a limited number of premium seats available.
Tickets for Nightfall are priced from £15 to £65 with reduced prices for previews and midweek matinees. A limited number of premium seats are also available.
A special allocation of £15 seats are held for Young Bridge, a free scheme for those under 26.
Access: 0333 320 0051 or [email protected]
Website: www.bridgetheatre.co.uk
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