NANA MENSAH TO STAR OPPOSITE ADRIEN BRODY
IN THE WORLD PREMIERE OF
LINDSEY FERRENTINO’S THE FEAR OF 13
FULL CASTING ALSO ANNOUNCED
The Donmar Warehouse today announce the full casting for the world premiere of Lindsey Ferrentino’s The Fear of 13 – the inaugural production in Tim Sheader’s first season as Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse. Nana Mensah will star opposite previously announced Adrien Brody, and they are joined by Michael Fox, Aidan Kelly, Posi Morakinyo, Cyril Nri, Ferdy Roberts and Tommy Sim’aan.
Justin Martin’s production opens on 10 October, with previews from 4 October, and runs until 30 November.
THE WORLD PREMIERE OF
THE FEAR OF 13
by Lindsey Ferrentino
Based on the documentary film by David Sington
Directed by Justin Martin; Set design by Miriam Buether; Costume design by Brigitte Reiffenstuel;Lighting design by Jon Clark; Sound design by Ian Dickinson for Autograph;Video design by Ash J Woodward; Composer and Music Director DJ Walde; Hair, Wigs and Make up design by Campbell Young Associates; Associate Director Ed Burnside; Voice Coach Barbara Houseman;Dialect Coach Aundrea Fudge; Casting Director Anna Cooper CDG.
4 October 2024 – 30 November 2024
“The first thing you should know is that this is true. It’s what actually happened.
I know it seems like it’s a story – inside of a story – inside of a story.
–but that’s how it is for most people. At least the ones in here.”
Nick’s got a story to tell you. About how a routine traffic stop turned into a conviction for murder. About how he spent the next 22 years on Death Row. About how he finally petitioned the court to ask not for an appeal, but for his execution date. And about what happened next…
Based on the extraordinary true story of Nick Yarris, Academy Award winner Adrien Brody makes his London theatre debut in the world premiere of The Fear of 13; a new play by Lindsey Ferrentino (Ugly Lies the Bone) directed by Justin Martin (Prima Facie).
Following a successful partnership with Clean Break in 2023, the Donmar Warehouse will be partnering with the company again this Autumn to offer up to 8 volunteering placements across front of house roles to provide employability skills to women aged 18 and above who have lived experience of the criminal justice system or are at risk of entering it. Clean Break is a women’s theatre company, changing lives and minds, on stage, in prison and in the community.
Lindsey Ferrentino is an American playwright with three world premieres in the 2024 season. In May, she opened The Artist in the UK (co-adapted with Drew McOnie, Theatre Royal Plymouth), and this August, she opened the world premiere of the new musical Queen of Versailles (book by Lindsey Ferrentino, music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, starring Kristin Chenoweth and F. Murray Abraham, The Colonial Theater). Her other produced plays include Ugly Lies the Bone (Lyttelton at National Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, New York, with over 100 productions worldwide), Amy and the Orphans (Roundabout Theatre Company), This Flat Earth (Playwrights Horizons), and The Year to Come (La Jolla Playhouse). Her plays have been translated into Spanish, German, and Portuguese and have been produced across the US, in London, Germany, Spain, and Venezuela. This winter, she will direct her first feature film – an adaptation of her play Amy and the Orphans for Jason Bateman’s Aggregate Films. She is the recipient of The Arc’s prize for Entertainment Industry Excellence for her writing centered on disability inclusion. Other prizes include: the Kesserling, ASCAP Cole Porter Playwriting Prize, Paul Newman Drama Award, Laurents/Hatcher Award, NYU Distinguished Alumna Award, and Hunter College’s 40 Under 40 Distinguished Alumna.
Adrien Brody is an Academy Award-winning actor, producer, composer and painter best known for The Pianist, for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. For television, he has starred in HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Los Angeles Lakers and the acclaimed crime drama Peaky Blinders. He garnered Emmy nominations for his performances as Harry Houdini in Houdini and investor Josh Aaronson in HBO’s acclaimed drama series Succession. His film credits include Asteroid City, King Kong, The Darjeeling Limited, The French Dispatch, and Midnight in Paris. His forthcoming films include Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.
Nana Mensah plays Jackie Schaffer. Her theatre work includes the Tony Award nominated play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, New York), Nollywood Dreams (MCC Theatre, New York) and Man from Nebraska (Second Stage Theatre – Outer Critics’ Circle nomination). For television, her work includes Presumed Innocent, The Diplomat, The Chair, Bonding, Little America, 13 Reasons Why, Evil, New Amsterdam, and An African City; and for film, After Yang, Queen of Glory – which she also wrote and directed (Best New Narrative Director and Special Jury Prize for Artistic Expression at the Tribeca Film Festival, nomination for Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards, winner of the California Film Institute’s Mind the Gap Creation Prize), King of Staten Island, Farewell Amor, and Love or Something Like That.
Michael Fox’s theatre work includes Othello (Riverside Studios), Clybourne Park (Park Theatre), Kerry Jackson (National Theatre), All in a Row, A Lie of the Mind (Southwark Playhouse) and An Enemy of the People (Chichester Festival Theatre/National Theatre). For television, his work includes Bombing Auschwitz, Endeavour, Downton Abbey (as series regular Andrew Parker), Marvellous, The Ark, New Worlds, Little Big Mouth and Mrs Bradley Mysteries; and for film, Downton Abbey, The World Will Tremble, Dunkirk and Good People.
Aidan Kelly returns to the Donmar where he previously appeared in The Man Who Had All the Luck. His other theatre work includes The Treaty Debates (Anú), Last Orders at the Dockside, The Country Girls, Macbeth, Terminus, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Doubt, Howie the Rookie, True West, Julius Caesar, The Burial at Thebes, Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the Stars, The Barbaric Comedies, Sucking Dublin (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), Salome, Treasure Island, The Silver Tassie (National Theatre), Once the Musical (Phoenix Theatre), Troilus and Cressida, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice (RSC), Terror, Have I None/The Chair Plays, Blasted (Lyric Hammersmith), The Pride of Parnell Street (Fishamble @59E59, New York), Howie the Rookie (Bush Theatre), The Shaughraun (Edinburgh Lyceum), Inside the GPO (Fishamble), and The Playboy of the Western World, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Philadelphia, Here I Come!, and The Good Father (Druid Theatre). For television, his work includes Say Nothing; Borderline, Stay Close, Fair City, London Kills, Killing Eve, Warrior, Call the Midwife, No Offence, Ashes to Ashes, Kitchen, Making the Cut, Bachelors Walk, Proof The Clinic and The Cassidys; and for film, Jericho Ridge, The Physician, Durango, Eden, Michael Collins, Porcelain and The Smiling Suicide Club.
Posi Morakinyo’s theatre work includes For Black Boys… (Garrick Theatre), Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temptations (Prince Edward Theatre), Mandela (Young Vic), Tina – The Tina Turner Musical (Aldwych Theatre) and Madagascar (UK and international tour).
Cyril Nri’s theatre work includesFurther than the Furthest Thing (Young Vic), Trouble in Mind, Our Country’s Good, The Observer, The Darker Face of the Earth, Way of the World, Blood Wedding (National Theatre), Vassa, Desire (Almeida Theatre), The Weatherman (Park Theatre), The Barbershop Chronicles (National Theatre/Australia and New Zealand tour), Hamlet, Kiss Me Kate, Breaking the Ice, Life’s a Dream, Volpone, Henry VIII, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar (RSC), The Absence of War (Headlong Theatre), Black Jesus (HMD Productions/Finborough Theatre), Julius Caesar (RSC/West End/BAM New York), The Riots, Playboy of the West Indies, The Piano Lesson, All or Nothing (Tricycle Theatre), Mad About the Boy (Iron Shoes/Edinburgh Festival), Oxford Street, Infidel in the Upper Room, Where Do We Live, Search and Destroy, Ficky Stingers, A Colder Climate, Prairie Du Chien, Edmund (Royal Court Theatre), Road (Cochrane Theatre), The Dragon Can’t Dance (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Macbeth (National Theatre/American tour), Othello (Birmingham Stage Company), The Exonerated (Bob Balaban), The Tempest (The Old Vic), and Serious Money (Wyndham’s Theatre). For television, his work includes Missing You, Daddy Issues, Holier than Thou, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, The Power, Noughts and Crosses, Devils, Zapped, The ABC Murders, Class, Death in Paradise, Cucumber, Criticals, Crims, Law and Order, New Tricks, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Waking the Dead, Cold Blood, The Bill – as series regular Superintendent Adam Okaro, Arabian Nights, Maise Raine, A Touch of Frost, Only Love, Goodnight Sweetheart, This Life, Pie in the Sky, Frank Stubbs Promotes, Calling the Shots and A Strike Out of Time; and for film, Wicked Little Letters, The Witches, Backdraft 2, Jellyfish, Deadmeat, Long Time Dead, The Siege, Talos: The Mummy, The Steal and Strapless.
Ferdy Roberts is Co-Artistic Director of Filter Theatre, and was previously an Associate Artist at The Lyric Hammersmith. His theatre work includes Kyoto (RSC/Good Chance), Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Filter Theatre/HOME/Lyric Hamersmith), Girl from the North Country (The Old Vic), Fatherland (Frantic Assembly), Twelfth Night; Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Faster (Filter Theatre), Plaques & Tangles, If You Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep (Royal Court Theatre), Lampedusa (HighTide/Soho Theatre), Shakespeare In Love (Noël Coward Theatre), Water (Filter Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith /London /Sydney /New York), Pigeons, Talk Show, The President Has Come to See You (Open Court at the Royal Court), Three Kingdoms, Three Sisters (Lyric Hammersmith), Silence (Filter Theatre/RSC), Wallenstein, A Christmas Carol (Chichester Festival Theatre), On Religion (Theatre Poche, Brussels), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Filter Theatre at the National Theatre), The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, Aladdin (Bristol Old Vic), The Fixer (Almeida Theatre), Girl in a Goldfish Bowl (Sheffield Theatres), Frankenstein (Derby Playhouse), Switchback (Sweetscar/Glasgow Tron), and Playing the Victim (Royal Court/Told By An Idiot). For television his work includes:Dark Angel, Foyle’s War, MI High, The Whistleblowers, Gold Plated, and Your Mother Should Know; and for film,Ozma, What You Will, Mr Nice, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll and Honest.
Tommy Sim’aan’s theatre work includes A View from the Bridge (Headlong), The Tempest (RSC), Starcrossed (Arden Entertainment)and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Tilted Wig Productions). For television his work includes Vigil and The Midwich Cuckoos.
Justin Martin directs. For theatre, his credits include Kyoto (RSC/Good Chance co-production), Stranger Things – The First Shadow (Olivier Award for Best Entertainment), The Jungle (A Young Vic/National Theatre co-production which played at the Young Vic, West End, St Ann’s Warehouse and in San Francisco and Washington DC – Obie (Southbank Sky Arts Award and a Broadway World Award for Best Direction) – all co-directed with Stephen Daldry. His other credits include Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie with Jodie Comer (West End and Broadway, with the NT Live broadcast being the highest earning event cinema of all time). His other theatre work includes Low Level Panic (Galway Theatre Festival, Irish tour and Australia, Last Chance: A Plea For the Unaccompanied Children of Calais (Young Vic), The Nether (Seymour Centre, Sydney), Far Away (fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne), Fifty Two (Leicester Square Theatre), Good Chance/No Chance (as part of the Southbank Centre’s Festival of Love), Harvey and Frieda (Arcola Theatre), Street (Mick Laly Theatre – Galway Theatre Festival), The Kitchen (HM Theatre, Victoria) and Skintight (fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne). His long collaboration with Daldry also includes as Associate Director on The Inheritance, Skylight and The Audience (West End and Broadway). He is an associate artist with Good Chance Theatre, and was the inaugural recipient of the Roger Leach Award for Theatre. In 2021 he co-directed the critically acclaimed and BAFTA Award-winning film Together with Stephen Daldry for Sonia Friedman Productions, BBC Films, and Shoebox Films (starring James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan). His other screen credits include The Lovers for Sky Atlantic, Sundance and AMC, the first two seasons of the award-winning Netflix series The Crown, the upcoming Netflix film The Beautiful Game, and the NT Live performances of Prima Facie, Skylight and The Audience.
DONMAR WAREHOUSE
LISTINGS
41 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9LX
Box Office: www.donmarwarehouse.com / 020 3282 3808
Instagram, X (Twitter) and Facebook: @donmarwarehouse
PERFORMANCE TIMES
Evenings Mon – Sat 7.30pm
Thursday & Saturday matinees 2.30pm
TICKET PRICES
The Fear of 13, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812
£65 (£60) / £50 (£45) / £30 (£25)
Backstroke, Intimate Apparel
£60 (£55) / £45 (£40) / £25 (£20)
Preview discounts apply to the first four performances only
Standing £15 to be released at a later date
35 AND UNDER TICKETS AT £20
Aged 16-35? Sign up to our exclusive email list to book tickets for £20, located throughout the theatre including the front row. Plus receive insights to shows, invites to socials, and exclusive offers at the bar and more. Book early to secure these prices. www.donmarwarehouse.com/35under
Maximum two tickets per person – both need to be aged 35 or under at time of the performance. Subject to availability. ID will need to be shown at Box Office to collect tickets.
DONMAR DAILY
New tickets on sale every day at the Donmar. Allocations of tickets will be made available every day for performances 7 days later. Tickets will be available across the auditorium at every price band.
ACCESS
The Donmar Warehouse is fully wheelchair accessible. Guide dogs and hearing dogs are welcome in the auditorium. There is a Loop system and a Radio Frequency system fitted in the main auditorium and there are also hearing loops at all the front of house counters.
ASSISTED PERFORMANCES
If you require a companion to attend the Donmar, their ticket will be free. To book call 020 3282 3808 or email [email protected].
For all other access enquiries or bookings call 020 3282 3808.
THE FEAR OF 13
4 October 2024 – 30 November 2024
Captioned: Monday 18 November 7.30pm
Audio described: Saturday 16 November 2.30pm
NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812
7 December 2024 – 8 February 2025
Captioned: Monday 27 January 7.30pm
Audio described: Saturday 1 February 2.30pm
BACKSTROKE
14 February 2025 – 12 April 2025
Captioned: Monday 31 March at 7.30pm
Audio described: Saturday 5 April at 2.30pm
INTIMATE APPAREL
20 June 2025 – 9 August 2025
Captioned: Monday 28 July at 7.30pm
Audio described: Saturday 2 August at 2.30pm
DONMAR WEST END:
NEXT TO NORMAL
Directed by Michael Longhurst
WYNDHAM’S THEATRE
Until 21 September 2024
MACBETH
Directed by Max Webster
HAROLD PINTER THEATRE
1 October – 14 December 2024
DONMAR WAREHOUSE
The Donmar offers a uniquely intimate theatre experience where no audience member is ever more than four rows from the action. In our converted warehouse in the heart of the West End, we bring together exceptional artists to tell powerful, popular and inclusive stories. For over 30 years we’ve been making celebrated productions of classic plays, new work and intimate musicals that illuminate the human experience and thrill theatre-goers at our home base and further afield through transfers and on screen. We enable talented emerging artists to find new routes into the industry, and create opportunities for local young people to experience the artform as both audience members and makers. Through our productions and participation programmes we inspire audiences and artists of all backgrounds to embrace the experience of live theatre as a catalyst for inquiry, compassion, connection and joy.