The cast for the European premiere of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ OBIE Award-winning play is Cassie Clare, Emmanuella Cole, Celeste Dodwell, Iola Evans, Ken Nwosu, Vivian Oparah, Alistair Toovey, and Kevin Trainor. They are joined by cellist James Douglas.
Ned Bennett returns to the Orange Tree to direct following his phenomenally successful production of Pomona which transferred to the National Theatre and Royal Exchange.
"The play uses the plot of the Irish playwright Dion Boucicault’s 1859 melodrama The Octoroon…as the starting point for a bigger, wilder, more hilarious play about the tremendous, often tragic difficulties of identity, and life, for us all." The New Yorker
Judge Peyton is dead, and his plantation Terrebonne is in financial ruins. Peyton’s handsome nephew George arrives as heir apparent, and quickly falls in love with Zoe, a beautiful ‘octoroon’. But, the dastardly M’Closky has other plans — for both Terrebonne and Zoe.
Cassie Clare's theatre includes Little Shop of Horrors (Sell A Door); Oliver! (Curve, Leicester); Nights (White Bear); and Cats (London Palladium/UK tour). TV includes Maigret and The Coroner.
Emmanuella Cole's theatre includes Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again (RSC); The Iliad (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh; nominated for Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland 2016 – Best Female Performance); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (National Theatre in the West End); But I Cd Only Whisper (Arcola).
TV includes Cormoran Strike, Obsession, Cucumber, Scott and Bailey, Law and Order UK, Top Boy, Thorne and Little Miss Jocelyn.
Celeste Dodwell's theatre includes: Hay Fever (Theatre Royal Bath/West End/Australian tour); and in Australia: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Belvoir Street Theatre); Three Sisters (Cry Havoc); and The Crucible (Sydney Theatre Company).
TV includes Call the Midwife, The Musketeers, Downton Abbey, Home and Away and Double Trouble.
Films include Allied and Carless Love.
Iola Evans graduates from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Summer 2017. Theatre includes Treasure Island and Yerma (Fourth Monkey Theatre); and Miller’s Crossing (Secret Cinema).
Ken Nwosu's theatre includes: Ghosts (HOME); The Alchemist, As You Like It, Othello, Merchant of Venice, The White Devil, Arden of Faversham, The Roaring Girl (RSC); True or False (Arcola); Magenta Clouds (Theare503); Perfect Match (Watford Palace); A Human Being Died That Night (Hampstead).
Vivian Oparah trained at the National Youth Theatre. TV includes: Class (BBC).
Alistair Toovey's theatre includes: French Without Tears (Orange Tree Theatre and ETT); Crossing Jerusalem (Park Theatre); Mind the Gap (National Theatre); Lord of the Flies (Open Air, Regent’s Park); Cake (Edinburgh Fringe); Les Miserables (West End).
TV Includes: Tut (US).
Kevin Trainor's theatre includes: Saint Joan (Lyric, Belfast); Doctor Faustus (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Citizens, Glasgow); Titanic (The Mac, Belfast); Playboy of the Western World, Six Degrees of Separation (Old Vic); Canary (Liverpool/Hampstead/ETT); Love’s Labour’s Lost (Rose Theatre Kingston); 2000 Feet Away (Bush); Bent (West End); The Comedy of Errors, Postcards from America, Solstice, Twelfth Night (RSC); and Fishbowl (Theatre503).
TV includes Houdini and Doyle, Endeavour, Utopia, Wodehouse in Exile, Vera, London Irish, The Café, Sherlock, John Adams, Tripping Over, Building the Titanic and Commander.
Films include Make It New John and Hellboy.
Find out more about An Octoroon. £15 previews start 18 May
