Charity Wakefield, Honeysuckle Weeks and Alec Newman will star in the forthcoming UK premiere of Melanie Marnich’s These Shining Lives, one of the first productions to open at the new Park theatre.
Playing from 8 May (press night 15 May) to 9 June, These Shining Lives is set in 1920s Chicago and tells the story of Catherine, whose first job at the Radium Dial Company provides the starting point of her dangerous journey to becoming a pioneer for employees’ rights.
Well known for her on screen credits in television adaptations of classic novels Sense And Sensibility and Jane Eyre, Wakefield’s theatre credits include the National Theatre’s 2011 production of The Cherry Orchard, Othello at Shakespeare’s Globe and Sugared Grapefruit at the Old Vic.
Weeks, who is best known for her role in long-running WWII drama Foyle’s War, has appeared on stage in productions including A Daughter’s A Daughter at the Trafalgar Studios and Pygmalion, Twelfth Night and Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Chichester Festival Theatre.
Scottish actor Newman joins the two actresses with his own fair share of on screen experience having appeared in numerous television series including Waterloo Road, Silent Witness and Angel, and films A Lonely Place To Die, The Principles Of Lust and Bright Young Things. His theatre credits include King Lear at the Donmar Warehouse, Danton’s Death at the National Theatre and The Fastest Clock In The Universe at the Hampstead theatre.
Directed by Loveday Ingram, whose credits include numerous works for the RSC and Lyric Hammersmith, These Shining Lives will be the first production to open in the Park theatre’s largest auditorium Park200, with The Thing About Psychopaths playing in the venue’s more intimate Park90 theatre from 14 to 19 May.
Situated near Finsbury Park station in north London, the Park theatre, which opens its doors for the first time on 8 May when These Shining Lives begins previews, is a two auditorium venue that features a 200 seat theatre, a more flexible 90 seat theatre and The Morris Space, which will be used for educational and rehearsal purposes.
Artistic Director of the venue Jez Bond said: “Our aim with this new state-of-the-art two auditoria venue is to bring great theatre to the doorsteps of our local community, and also to attract an audience from across London, with a venue just 15 minutes from the centre of town. I couldn’t be more thrilled to open our first season with Melanie Marnich’s extraordinary play These Shining Lives. Loveday Ingram has assembled an amazingly talented cast with Charity Wakefield, Honeysuckle Weeks and Alec Newman leading the company, the perfect cast to christen our new venue.”