Billie Piper returns in Simon Stone’s highly-acclaimed production for a strictly limited run.
Billie Piper plays a woman whose inability to have a child tears her life apart. Simon Stone’s contemporary version of Lorca’s tragedy of yearning and loss won plaudits from audiences and critics alike when it premiered in the Young Vic’s Main House in July 2016, with Billie Piper receiving the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress at the 2016 Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Maureen Beattie, Brendan Cowell, John MacMillan and Charlotte Randle return to join Billie in the company.
Design for Yerma is by Lizzie Clachan, costumes by Alice Babidge, light by James Farncombe and music and sound by Stefan Gregory.
Billie Piper won the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2016 for her performance in Yerma. Previous theatre credits include: Great Britain, The Effect – Oliver nomination for Best Actress (National Theatre); Reasons To Be Pretty (Almeida) and Treats – Evening Standard Theatre Awards nomination for Best Actress (Garrick). Her film work includes: City of Tiny Lights, Animals United, Things to Do Before You’re 30, The Calcium Kid and Spirit Trap. Television credits include: Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, Doctor Who, A Passionate Woman, The Shadow in the North, The Ruby in the Smoke, Much Ado About Nothing, True Love and Canterbury Tales: The Miller’s Tale for the BBC, Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Mansfield Park for ITV.
Simon Stone began his career as an actor, before founding theatre company The Hayloft Project where he adapted and directed works including Platonov, 3xSisters, The Only Child, Spring Awakening and Thyestes, which was co-produced with Malthouse Theatre and went on to be staged at Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers in Paris. Simon was resident director at Belvoir in Sydney from 2010 – 2013. In his first year, in addition to adapting and directing Brecht’s Baal for the Sydney Theatre Company, he premiered the breakout hit adaptation of Ibsen’s Wild Duck at Belvoir, winning several prestigious Helpmann and Sydney Theatre Awards before being presented at the Barbican and Theater Basel. He further adapted it into his award-winning debut feature The Daughter, starring Oscar Award-winning actor Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, Miranda Otto, Anna Torv, Paul Schneider and Odessa Young. The Daughter premiered at the Sydney Film Festival before screening at the Melbourne and Toronto International Film Festivals, the Venice Days section of the Venice Film Festival and the London Film Festival amongst many others. It was nominated for ten AACTA Awards, winning three including Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was released theatrically in the UK in 2016 and will shortly be released in the US. Stone previously directed a chapter of The Turning anthology feature film, Reunion, written by Andrew Upton and starring Cate Blanchett, which received a Berlinale premiere in 2013. Stone has written and directed productions for companies including Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Belvoir Theatre, Theatre Oberhausen, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Münchner Kammerspiele, Burgtheater Wien and Theater Basel along with the Young Vic. In 2016, Stone directed the opera Die Tote Stadt and Drei Schwestern for Theater Basel, Husbands and Wives for Toneelgroep Amsterdam and Peer Gynt at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, in addition to the hit adaptation of Lorca’s Yerma for the Young Vic starring Billie Piper. In 2017 he will present Ibsenhuis for Toneelgroep and Lear at the Salzburg Festival along with the encore season of Yerma and has a range of feature film, television and theatre projects in development.
YERMA plays at the Young Vic Theatre Wednesday 26 July – Thursday 31 August 2017
Click here to view the Young Vic’s 2017 season brochure
Tickets for the 2017 season go on sale to Friends of the Young Vic at 10.00am today. Public booking opens Wednesday 1 February at 10.00am. www.youngvic.org
