Zainab Hasan and Sarah Lam will appear in the UK premiere of Michele Lee's play RICE, directed by Matthew Xia. Our co-production with ATC previews from 9 October 2021 and will also be live-streamed on 4 & 5 November.
Nisha (Zainab Hasan) is a young hotshot executive working for Golden Fields, Australia’s largest producer of rice. Ambitious and headstrong, she’s determined to become the first female Indian CEO in Australia. She’s close to sealing a contract with the Indian government, which would see her company take over India’s national rice distribution system.
A secret deal worth billions.
Working late nights in the office she encounters Yvette (Sarah Lam), an older Chinese migrant, who cleans up her mess. Yvette has her own entrepreneurial ambitions, but her daughter faces court after participating in a protest against the unethical practices of a national supermarket chain.
The two form a powerful – if unlikely – bond as they navigate the complexities of their lives and the world at large.
Australian Stage called it “a heady broth of gender, generation and globalisation”.
Brimming with wickedly humorous observations on globalisation, politics and family, this is a powerful new play from Asian-Australian writer Michele Lee, which has won numerous awards including the Australian Writers’ Guild Award for Best Original Stage Play.
Directed by Matthew Xia (Amsterdam, Blood Knot), Artistic Director of Actors Touring Company, who produce international contemporary theatre – making the global, local and the local, global.
The Designer is Hyemi Shin, Lighting Designer is Bethany Gupwell, Sound Designer & Composer is Lex Kosanke, Movement Director is Asha Jennings-Grant, Associate Director is Ameera Conrad and Casting Consultant is Sophie Parrott CDG.
Zainab Hasan recently appeared at the OT in the livestream of Outside. Other theatre includes The Welkin (National Theatre), [BLANK] and The Shakespeare Trilogy (Donmar Warehouse), and Timon of Athens, Tartuffe and Tamburlaine (RSC).
Sarah Lam's theatre work includes Paradise (National Theatre), La Cage aux Folles (Park Theatre), Richard II (Shakespeare's Globe), Snow in Midsummer (RSC), Chimerica (Almeida), The World of Extreme Happiness (National Theatre), and Factors Unforeseen (Orange Tree).
