The Bridge Project (Second Season) - Old Vic
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
FULL casting and dates have been announced for Shakespeare’s As You Like It and The Tempest, the two plays which make up the second season of Sam Mendes’ Bridge Project.
The productions, presented in repertoire, will open at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), where they’ll run from January 12 to March 13, 2010. They will then conclude at the Old Vic, in a season running from June 12 to August 21, 2010.
The cross-over cast will include Britons Stephen Dillane as Prospero and Jacques, Juliet Rylance as Miranda and Rosalind, and Edward Bennett (David Tennant’s acclaimed understudy in the RSC’s production of Hamlet at the Novello Theatre) as Ferdinand and Oliver; as well as Americans Christian Camargo as Ariel and Orlando, Ron Cephas Jones as Caliban and Charles the Wrestler, Thomas Sadoski as Stephano and Touchstone, and Michelle Beck as Ceres and Celia.
However, Anne-Marie Duff who was to have played Ariel and Rosalind has withdrawn from the project for personal reasons.
Previously Posted: Sam Mendes will return to the Old Vic in 2010 to direct the second season of The Bridge Project, a unique three year project between The Old Vic Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and Neal Street Productions.
The 2010 company of leading British and American actors will include Stephen Dillane, Anne-Marie Duff, Christian Camargo and Juliet Rylance, who will perform a double-bill of Shakespeare – The Tempest and As You Like It.
As with this year’s productions – The Cherry Orchard and The Winter’s Tale – the plays will be performed in rep and both share the same cast. Accordingly, Dillane will play Prospero in The Tempest and Jacques in As You Like It, with Duff as Ariel and Rosalind, Camargo as Stephano and Orlando and Rylance as Miranda and Celia.
Dillane was scheduled to appear in the 2008 inaugural productions of The Bridge Project – Hamlet and The Tempest – but was forced to withdraw due to family illness. As a result, the season was cancelled and the project postponed for a year.
His theatre credits include Angels in America, Hamlet, Endgame, Uncle Vanya, Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing (as Henry) for which he won a Tony Award for Best Actor (2000) and a one-man version of Macbeth. On screen, he has appeared in the Goal! trilogy, John Adams, King Arthur, The Hours and Welcome to Sarajevo.
Duff’s theatre credits include Saint Joan and King Lear (National Theatre); Collected Stories (Theatre Royal, Haymarket), A Doll’s House (Shared Experience) and Days of Wine and Roses (Donmar Warehouse). Her film and television appearances include Shameless, Elizabeth – The Virgin Queen, Enigma, The Magadalene Sisters, Sinners (for which she won Best Actress Awards at the Monte Carlo and Shanghai film festivals) and Charles II.
Camargo’s New York theatre work includes Kit Marlowe, Underpants, Coriolanus and the 2008 Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. He is currently starring in the title role of Hamlet at the Theater for a New Audience. He is married to Juliet Rylance who recently starred as Othello‘s Desdemona, also at the Theater for a New Audience.
This year’s Bridge Project continues at the Old Vic until August 15, 2009.
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