Full cast announced for Paula Vogel's INDECENT
by Best of Theatre Staff on Monday 27 January 2020, 9:55 am in Upcoming and New Shows
With the critically acclaimed production of The Boy Friend currently running at the theatre, the Menier Chocolate Factory today announce the full company for the European première of Paula Vogel’s Tony Award-winning play Indecent. Rebecca Taichman directs Corey English - The Middle (Male); Beverley Klein - The Elder (Female); Finbar Lynch - The Stage Manager; Molly Osborne - The Ingenue (Female); Peter Polycarpou - The Elder (Male); Alexandra Silber - The Middle (Female); Joseph Timms - The Ingenue (Male); Merlin Shepherd - The Clarinettist; Anna Lowenstein - The Violinist, and Josh Middleton - The Accordionist.
Tickets are now on sale, the run begins on the 13th March until the 9th May 2020. The press night is on 23rd March at 8pm.
A seminal work of Jewish culture or an act of traitorous libel? Indecent explores the origins of the highly controversial play The God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch. We follow the path of the artists who risked their careers and lives to perform it in this deeply moving play accompanied by a small live klezmer band.
Indecent reunites Vogel and director Rebecca Taichman who co-created and directed the original production. Indecent had its world première production at Yale Repertory Theatre in October 2015. The play had its New York première Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre in May 2016, and transferred to Broadway in April 2017. It was nominated for the Tony Award for Best New Play received the Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Play for Taichman and Best Lighting Design of a Play for Christopher Akerlind (who will also light the Menier production).
Corey English returns to the Menier to play The Middle (Male) – he previously appeared in She Loves Me. His recent theatre work includes Curtains (Wyndham’s Theatre), Young Frankenstein (Garrick Theatre), Guys and Dolls (Royal Albert Hall), Driving Miss Daisy (York Theatre Royal), Kiss Me Kate (Kilworth House), The Tempest (Bedouin Shakespeare Company), The Producers (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), Urinetown (St James Theatre and West End), Dream of Perfect Sleep (Finborough Theatre), Chicago (Adelphi Theatre), and on Broadway in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Hello Dolly!, Damn Yankees, Guys and Dolls, Home Play and Gypsy. For television, his work includes Mysti and Oz; and for film The Conjuring 2, Empire II and Mountainaire.
Beverley Klein plays The Elder (Female). Her stage work includes The Beggar’s Opera (Bouffes du Nord), In Basildon (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch), Deathtrap (Salisbury Playhouse and UK tour), After October (Finborough Theatre), Young Chekhov Trilogy (National Theatre), Cornelius (Finborough Theatre and Brits Off Broadway), Sixty-Six Books (Bush Theatre), Restoration (Headlong), The Holy Terror (Duke of York’s Theatre), Camille (Lyric Theatre Hammersmith), Six Characters in Search of an Author (Young Vic), Romeo and Juliet, The Villain’s Opera and Summerfolk (National Theatre). For television, her work includes Liar, Mr Selfridge, Call the Midwife, Ripper Street, Down to Earth, Gimme Gimme Gimme and The Hello Girls; and for film, Swinging with the Finkels.
Finbar Lynch plays The Stage Manager. His extensive theatre work includes Girl From the North Country (Noel Coward Theatre, Gielgud Theatre and Toronto), The Lady From the Sea, Hecuba, To the Green Fields Beyond, Fool for Love, Translations (Donmar Warehouse), Richard III (Almeida Theatre), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Antony and Cleopatra, Not About the Nightingales (National Theatre), Antigone (Barbican and world tour), Desire Under the Elms (Lyric Hammersmith), The Fairy Queen (Glyndebourne, Paris, New York), The Duchess of Malfi (The Old Vic), Faith Healer (Bristol Old Vic), The Big Fellah (Out of Joint), The Raggered Trousered Philanthropist (Chichester Festival Theatre), as well as for the RSC, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure, Amphibians, and A Woman Killed with Kindness. For television, his work includes Treasdstone, The Mallorca Files, The Feed, Foyle’s War, DCI Banks, Breathless, Game of Thrones, Silk and Proof; and for film, Adventures of a Mathematician, The World We Knew, Property of the State, Departure, Suffragette, To Kill a King and The Scold’s Bride.
Molly Osborne returns to the Menier Chocolate Factory to play The Ingenue (Female). She previously appeared in Fiddler on the Roof (also Playhouse Theatre).
Peter Polycarpou plays The Elder (Male). His theatre work includes A Very Expensive Poison (The Old Vic), Oslo (Harold Pinter Theatre), Ross, Guys and Dolls, The Pajama Game, Love Story (Chichester Festival Theatre), Sweeney Todd (Chichester Festival Theatre and Adelphi Theatre), Working (Southwark Playhouse), Mrs Henderson Presents (Toronto), The Magistrate (National Theatre), Anna in the Tropics (Hampstead Theatre), Les Miserables (25th Anniversary at the O2, Dubai), Oliver! (Curve, Leicester), City of Angels (Donmar Warehouse), Imagine This (New London Theatre), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (London Palladium) and Oklahoma! (National Theatre). For television, his work includes Riviera, Unforgotten, Tyrant, The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries, The Family Tree, Hustle, Empathy, and as series regular Chris in Birds of a Feather; and for film, Blue Iguana, Our Cyprus, Clean Skin, O Jerusalem, De-Lovely and Evita.
Alexandra Silber plays The Middle (Female). Her work for the stage in the UK includes Kiss Me Kate (BBC Proms), Carousel (Savoy Theatre – TMA for Best Performance in a Musical), Fiddler on the Roof (Sheffield Crucible and Savoy Theatre) and The Woman in White (Palace Theatre); and in the US, 50th anniversary production of Fiddler on the Roof (Broadway), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre), Camelot (Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC), My Fair Lady (MUNY), Arlington (Vineyard Theater), Dum Dee Tweedle (Detroit), West Side Story (San Francisco Symphony. Grammy nomination for the critically acclaimed recording), She Loves Me (Caramoor Center for the Music and the Arts), Song of Norway (Carnegie Hall), Love Story the Musical (The Walnut Street Theatre), Hello Again (Transport Group) and Master Class (Kennedy Center, Manhattan Theatre Club). For television, her work includes Elementary, The Mysteries of Laura and Law and Order; and for film, 1408.
Joseph Timms plays The Ingenue (Male). His theatre work includes A Christmas Carol (RSC), The White Devil, The Taming of the Shrew, Henry IV Parts 1 &2, Bedlam (Shakespeare’s Globe), A Tale of Two Cities (Royal and Derngate), The Hudsucker Proxy (Nuffield Southampton Theatres and Liverpool Everyman), Twelfth Night and Richard III (Belasco Theatre, Broadway), Bracken More (Tricycle Theatre), Privates on Parade (Noel Coward Theatre), Richard II (Donmar Warehouse) and Twelfth Night (National Theatre). For television, his work includes Atlantis and Amerikan Kanibal.
Paula Vogel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose other plays include How I Learned to Drive (Broadway production set for spring 2020; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel Prize, OBIE Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play), The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot’n’Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession and A Civil War Christmas. Her plays have been produced across the US and worldwide.
Rebecca Taichman directs. Her credits include Sing Street (New York Theatre Workshop and forthcoming Broadway run at Lyceum Theatre), Time and the Conways (Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre), School Girls; Or, The Mean African Girls Play (MCC), This Flat Earth, Familiar, Stage Kiss, Milk Like Sugar (Playwrights Horizons), How To Transcend a Happy Marriage (Lincoln Center), Rappaccini's Daughter, Dark Sisters (Gotham Chamber Opera), Luck of the Irish (LCT3), Orlando (Classic Stage Company), Orpheus (New York City Opera), The Scene (Second Stage), Menopausal Gentleman (The Ohio Theatre).
Indecent is being presented in association with Daryl Roth, Elizabeth I McCann and Cody Lassen.