Joe Hill-Gibbins returns to the Young Vic’s Main House stage with a bold new production featuring Michael Gould as Oberon, Anastasia Hille as Titania and Leo Bill as Bottom. Lovers Lysander and Hermia are played by John Dagleish and Jemima Rooper; Demetrius and Helena by Oliver Alvin-Wilson and Anna Madeley. Matthew Steer plays Peter Quince. Further casting is still to be announced.
In a world of grotesque transformations and sexual provocation, repressed conflicts between lovers and their parents are released. Manipulation leads to complications and desire becomes dangerous. Heaving with the energy of a wild house party, Hill-Gibbins’ production dives into the subconscious of Shakespeare’s masterpiece.
Design and light for A Midsummer Night’s Dream is by Johannes Schütz, with costumes by Michaela Barth, sound by Paul Arditti, movement by Jenny Ogilvie and dramaturgy by Zoë Svendsen.
Oliver Alvin-Wilson makes his Young Vic debut in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His theatre credits include: The Red Barn, Emperor And Galilean, All’s Well That Ends Well (National Theatre); Antigone (Pilot, Theatre Royal Stratford East); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry V, The Merchant Of Venice (Propeller Theatre Company); Doctor Faustus (West Yorkshire Playhouse/ Citizens Theatre) and Blue/Orange (ATG, Theatre Royal Brighton/UK Tour). For film his credits include: The Huntsman. His television credits include: From Cradle to Grave, Misfits, Hollyoaks and Casualty.
Leo Bill returns to the Young Vic after appearing in The Glass Menagerie in 2010. His other theatre credits include: Hamlet (Barbican); Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Pains of Youth, The Observer, The Hothouse, A Woman Killed With Kindness (National Theatre); The Silence of the Sea (Donmar Warehouse); Posh (Duke of York’s Theatre, Royal Court) and The Way of the World (Sheffield Crucible Theatre). His credits for film include: Alice Through the Looking Glass, Mr Turner, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Me and Orson Welles, The Fall and Vera Drake. For television: Taboo, The White Queen, Pramface, The Borgias and Eroica.
John Dagleish makes his debut at the Young Vic in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His theatre credits include: The Winter’s Tale/Harlequinade (The Garrick); Sunny Afternoon (Hampstead Theatre, Harold Pinter Theatre) for which he won an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical; Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, The Mother (Royal Court). Film credits: The Monuments Men, Age Of Heroes, Frankie Teardrop and The Priest. For television his credits include: The Last Dragonslayer, The Moorside Project, Silent Witness, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Siblings, Truckers, Beaver Falls I & II, Larkrise To Candleford (4 series) and Henry V.
Michael Gould returns to the Young Vic following A View from the Bridge (Wyndham’s Theatre and Lyceum Theatre New York), Hamlet and Cruel and Tender. His roles at The National Theatre include: Attempts on her Life, Waves, Women of Troy, Earthquakes in London, Pillars in the Community and Our Class. Other theatre work includes: The Audience (Apollo Theatre), The Ugly One (Royal Court), Othello (RSC), and King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe). On TV: The Jury, Secret State, The Bletchley Circle, Lucan, Getting On, Decline and Fall, Silent Witness and The Conversation. On film: Our Kind of Traitor, Crocodile, Private Peaceful and Room 8 (BAFTA Best Short).
Anastasia Hille returns to the Young Vic after appearing in The Jewish Wife and The Maids. Work at the National Theatre includes: Dido-Queen of Carthage, Women Of Troy, Macbeth, Waves, A Dream Play, The Oresteia and The Effect (Olivier nominated). Other theatre work includes: The Master Builder (Almeida, Olivier nominated); Forty Winks (Royal Court); The Dark, Morphic Respnance (Donmar Warehouse); The Winter’s Tale (RSC); Ashes to Ashes/ Mountain Language (Royal Court, Lincoln Centre NYC); Macbeth, Measure for Measure (Barbican) and most recently Hamlet (also Barbican, Olivier nominated). Film includes: Good and most recently A United Kingdom. Anastasia’s television credits include: The Missing, Not Safe For Work, Getting On, The Tunnel and The Fear (BAFTA nominated).
Anna Madeley makes her Young Vic debut in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her theatre credits include: Les Blancs (National Theatre); The Turn of the Screw, Becky Shaw (Almeida Theatre); The Crucible (Old Vic); Contractions, Ladybirds (Royal Court); The Philanthropists, The Cosmonauts Last Message (Donmar Warehouse); and Private Lives (Music Box Theatre). Her film credits include: Deep Water, The Ones Below, A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Strawberry Fields, Brideshead Revisited and In Bruges. For television her credits include: Anne Lister, Secret State, Crossing Lines, The Crown, Virtuoso, Code of a Killer, Utopia and Mr Selfridge.
Jemima Rooper returns to the Young Vic after appearing in A Respectable Wedding in 2007. Other theatre credits include Hand to God (West End), Blithe Spirit (West End and US tour), One Man, Two Guvnors (National Theatre, Tour, West End & Broadway, nomination for What’s On Stage Best Supporting Actress Award), All My Sons (West End, nomination for What’s On Stage Best Supporting Actress Award), Me & My Girl (Sheffield Crucible, nomination for Best Performer in a Musical), The Power of Yes (National Theatre), Her Naked Skin (National Theatre), The Great Game (Tricycle), Where Do We Live (Royal Court). Her film credits include: Sexlife, One Chance, What If, The Black Dahlia and Kinky Boots. For television: Atlantis, Lost in Austen, As If, Hex, Love in a Cold Climate and The Railway Children.
Matthew Steer makes his Young Vic debut in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His theatre credits include: Hamlet (Barbican), The Victorian In The Wall (Royal Court), The Summer House (Gate), Out Of The Blue (Liverpool Everyman) and Britain’s Best Mates (Edinburgh Fringe). Film credits: Urban Hymn, NT Live: Hamlet, Cinderella, SuperBob, Criminal, Leatherbird and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I. For television his credits include: Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime, Siblings, Cider With Rosie, Drifters, Crackanory, Count Arthur Strong, Morgana Robinson’s The Agency, Drunk History, Outlander, Utopia, New Tricks, The Cafe, Misfits, The Royal, and Silent Witness.
Joe Hill-Gibbins follows his Measure for Measure with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other credits at the Young Vic include: The Changeling (The Maria, Main House), The Glass Menagerie, The Beauty Queen of Leenane and A Respectable Wedding. Joe was Genesis Fellow at the Young Vic between 2010 and 2012. Other theatre credits include: Little Revolution (Almeida), Edward II (National Theatre), The Village Bike (Royal Court) and The Girlfriend Experience (Young Vic and Royal Court / Drum Theatre Plymouth). His opera credits include: Powder Her Face (ENO).
Internationally acclaimed set designer Johannes Schütz returns to the Young Vic theatre after Three Sisters in 2012. His other theatre credits include: The Merchant of Venice (Royal Shakespeare Theatre), Big and Small (Barbican); On the Chimborazo (Münich Kammerspiele); Mama and the Whore (Schauspielhaus Bochum); Katherine of Heilbronn, Summer Folk (Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, In the Greifswald Street (Deutsches Theater Berlin); Schiff Der Träume, Hysteria and Macbeth (Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus). Johannes also worked on numerous productions for the Salzburg Festival and Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris. His publications include: Stages 2000-2007 and Johannes Schütz: Models & Interviews 2002-2015. His opera credits include: Orpheus and Eurydice and Ariadne on Naxos, works by Brecht and Schiller in Bochum and Mainz.
The Jerwood Assistant Director working with Joe Hill-Gibbins on A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Yaz Al-Shaater. The role is supported through the Jerwood Assistant Directors Program at the Young Vic.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare runs 16 February – 1 April 2017 in the Young Vic’s Main House. It is directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins with design and light by Johannes Schütz, costumes by Michaela Barth, sound by Paul Arditti, movement by Jenny Ogilvie and dramaturgy by Zoë Svendsen.
