OIL CASTING UPDATE World Premiere OIL a new play by Ella Hickson directed by Carrie Cracknell Friday 7 October – Saturday 26 November Press Night: Friday 14 October, 7pm The full cast of OIL, which opens on 14 October, is Anne-Marie Duff, Nabil Elouahabi, Brian Ferguson, Ellie Haddington, Patrick Kennedy, Yolanda Kettle, Tom Mothersdale, Lara Sawalha, Sam Swann and Christina Tam. Playwright Ella Hickson and director Carrie Cracknell make their Almeida debuts with the world premiere of this explosive new play which drills deep into the world’s relationship with this finite resource. The Stone Age. The Bronze Age. The Iron Age. The Age of Oil. The Stone Age didn’t end for want of stones. One woman and her daughter. What do you do when you know it’s going to run out? An epic, hurtling crash of empire, history and family – OIL drives our imaginations from 1889 to 2016 and beyond. Oil will be designed by Vicki Mortimer, with movement by Joseph Alford, lighting by Lucy Carter, composition by Stuart Earl and sound by Peter Rice. The dramaturg is Jenny Worton. Casting is by Julia Horan CDG. Ella Hickson’s previous plays include Wendy and Peter Pan for the RSC; Boys for Headlong, Nuffield Theatre, Southampton and HighTide Festival, which subsequently transferred to Soho Theatre; The Authorised Kate Bane at the Traverse Theatre; Gift as part of Decade for Headlong; Hot Mess at the Arcola; Precious Little Talent at Trafalgar Studios; and Eight which played at Bedlam Theatre, P.S. 122 New York and Trafalgar Studios, and won the 2008 Fringe First Award. In 2011 Ella was the Pearson writer in residence at the Lyric Hammersmith. She was the recipient of the 2013 Catherine Johnson Award. Carrie Cracknell’s work includes The Deep Blue Sea, Medea and Blurred Lines at the National Theatre; Macbeth and A Doll’s House at the Young Vic, which transferred to the West End and Broadway; Birdland, Pigeons and Searched for the Royal Court; and Wozzeck at ENO. Carrie was Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre, London from 2007 to 2012. She has also previously been Associate Director at both the Young Vic and the Royal Court. Anne-Marie Duff’s theatre credits include Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at the Lincoln Centre Theatre; Husbands and Sons, Strange Interlude, Saint Joan, Collected Stories and King Lear at the National Theatre; Berenice and Days of Wine and Roses at the Donmar Warehouse; Cause Celebre at the Old Vic; The Soldiers Fortune and The Daughter In Law at the Young Vic. Her film credits include Suffragette, Before I Go To Sleep, Molly Moon, Closed Circuit, Nowhere Boy, The Last Station, Is Anybody There? and The Magdalene Sisters. Television includes From Darkness, Murder, The Accused – Mo’s Story, Parade’s End, Margo, The History of Mr Polly, Elizabeth – The Virgin Queen and Shameless. Nabil Elouahabi’s theatre credits include Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State at the National Theatre; Fireworks at the Royal Court; I Call My Brothers and The Nightmares Of Carlos Fuentes at the Arcola; Love Your Soldiers at the Crucible, Sheffield; Crossing Jerusalem and The Great Game – Afghanistan at the Tricycle and on tour in the USA. Television includes: The Night Of, The Missing, 24: Live Another Day, Top Boy, Mad Dogs, Generation Kill, The Path To 9/11 and EastEnders. Film credits include Zero Dark Thirty, Charlie Wilson’s War, In This World, Ali G Indahouse and The Sum of all Fears. Brian Ferguson’s theatre credits include Everything That Gives Off Light for the TEAM and National Theatre of Scotland at the Edinburgh International Festival; Brideshead Revisited for English Touring Theatre & York Theatre Royal; The Broken Heart and The Changeling at Shakespeare’s Globe; Hamlet at Citizens Theatre; Adler & Gibb at the Royal Court; Earthquakes in London at the National Theatre; Threeway (Invisible Dot for Edinburgh Festival); Ugly Bird and The Game Show at the Bush Theatre; The Aztec Trilogy, Richard III, Dunsinane and Shakespeare in a suitcase for the RSC; Money at The Arches; Black Watch, Rupture and Snuff for the National Theatre of Scotland. Television includes: Line of Duty, Our World War, Field of Blood; Doctors; River City and Taggart. Ellie Haddington’s theatre credits include Bingo and My Mother Said I Never Should for Chichester Festival Theatre and the Young Vic; Taking Care of Baby for Birmingham Rep and Hampstead Theatre; Denial at the Bristol Old Vic; The House of Bernada Alba for Theatr Clwyd; Death of a Salesman at West Yorkshire Playhouse; Mother Courage and The Sea at the National Theatre; Richard III for the RSC; The Duchess of Malfi; The Winter’s Tale; Anna Christie; The Voysey Inheritance; Female Parts; and Mother Courage & Her Children at Manchester Royal Exchange. Television includes Bad Girls; Dickensian; Ordinary Lies; The Café; Doctor Who; A Very Social Secretary and Coronation Street. Film includes Their Finest; Creation; Sparkle; The Lawless Heart; Breathtaking; Creatures and Bombshell. Patrick Kennedy’s theatre credits include Photograph 51 in the West End; No Quarter at the Royal Court; The Glass Menagerie for Shared Experience; Measure For Measure at the Plymouth Theatre Royal and on tour; Therese Raquin at the National Theatre; Everything Is Illuminated at Hampstead Theatre; Suddenly Last Summer at Sheffield Lyceum and the Albany Theatre; and A Midsummer Night's Dream and Les Liasons Dangereuses at the Bristol Old Vic. Television includes The Collection; Churchill’s Secret; The Money; Downton Abbey; Murder On The Home Front; Boardwalk Empire; Peep Show; Parade's End; Black Mirror: The National Anthem; The 39 Steps; Bleak House; Cambridge Spies and Spooks. Film includes London Has Fallen; Mr Holmes; November Man; Warhorse; Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; The Last Station; Me and Orson Welles; Atonement; In Transit; A Good Year; Mrs Henderson Presents and Munich. Yolanda Kettle’s theatre credits include The Deep Blue Sea at the National Theatre; For Services Rendered at Chichester Festival Theatre; Birdland and Anhedonia at the Royal Court Theatre; A Doll’s House at the Young Vic and Duke of York’s Theatre, West End; and Pride and Prejudice at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Her television credits include The Collection, Love Nina and Father Brown. Tom Mothersdale’s theatre credits include Cleansed at the National Theatre; The Glass Menagerie, Boys and Romeo and Juliet for Headlong; B, Crave and 4:48 Psychosis at Sheffield Crucible; The Cherry Orchard at the Young Vic; In Lambeth at Southwark Playhouse; Missing Dates at Hampstead Theatre; King Lear at Chichester Festival Theatre and Brooklyn Academy of Music; Iphigenia and The Phoenix of Madrid at Theatre Royal, Bath; An Ideal Husband (West End); The Comedy of Errors at Shakespeare’s Globe; A Thousand stars explode in the sky at the Lyric Hammersmith. Television credits include Endeavour, Peaky Blinders and The Missing. Lara Sawalha’s theatre credits include Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State at the National Theatre; A is for Ali at the Turner Theatre; Nahda and Tunnel for Sandpit Productions; Jordanian Dirty Laundry for the Nabil Sawalha Comedy Group; Return for 3fates; Sour Lips for Paper Tiger; and Rest upon the Wind for AM Productions. Her film includes: Roads to Olympia; Father is doing fine; The Last Friday; and High Heels. Sam Swann’s theatre credits include Wendy and Peter Pan and Dunsinane at the RSC; Pomona at the Orange Tree, National Theatre, and Manchester Royal Exchange; The Kitchen and Greenland at the National Theatre; Primetime at the Royal Court; and Mercury Fur at Trafalgar Studios. Television includes Mr Selfridge, Jekyll & Hyde, Vicious, The Five, Atlantis, Gothic and Privates. Christina Tam’s television includes Brief Encounters; In the Club; Doctors; Prey; Derek; Scott & Bailey; In the Flesh; At the Sea; Last Tango in Halifax; Give Out Girls; Coronation Street; Body Farm; Hollyoaks; Bedlam; The Accused - Kenny’s Story; Spooks Code 9; Mobile; Innocence; and Bodies. Her film credits includes Limehouse Golem and Automata. ENDS For all press enquiries and images, contact Susie Newbery, Press and Media Relations Manager, on 020 7288 4911 or [email protected] Notes to Editors ABOUT THE ALMEIDA THEATRE The Almeida Theatre exists to launch the next generation of British artists onto the world stage. A small room with an international reputation, the Almeida began life as a literary and scientific society – complete with library, lecture theatre and laboratory. From the beginning, the building existed to investigate the world. Today, the Almeida makes brave new work that asks big questions: of plays, of theatre and of the world around us. The Almeida brings together the most exciting artists to take risks; to provoke, inspire and surprise audiences; to interrogate the present, dig up the past and imagine the future. Whether new work or reinvigorated classic, whether in the theatre, on the road or online, the Almeida makes live art to excite, enliven and entertain. The Almeida makes argument for theatre as an essential force in an increasingly fragmented society. Founded by Pierre Audi in 1980, his successors were Jonathan Kent and Ian McDiarmid in 1990, and Michael Attenborough in 2002. Productions including Hamlet with Ralph Fiennes in 2005, Rufus Norris’ Festen, Ruined by Lynn Nottage and most recently Chimerica, Ghosts and King Charles III have given the theatre international renown. In summer 2013, Rupert Goold joined the Almeida as Artistic Director. His first production was American Psycho: a new musical thriller, which transferred to Broadway in 2016. In 2014 the Almeida productions of Ghosts and Chimerica won eight Olivier Awards including Best Actress, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best New Play, Best Director and Best Revival and enjoyed transfers to the West End and Broadway respectively.