Casting for Frankie and Johnny announced

Published: 20 April 2018
Reporter: Peter Lathan

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune
Richard Blackwood Credit: Nick Gilligan
Ruth Everett Credit: Wolf Marloh

Northern Stage has announced casting for its production of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune which will run from 21 May to 2 June.

Terrence McNally’s 1982 play, first produced in 1987, will be directed by Mark Calvert and will star Richard Blackwood as Johnny and Ruth Everett as Frankie. Rhys Jarman will be the designer, Zia Bergin-Holly the lighting designer and the sound designer will be Nick John Williams.

Richard Blackwood began his career as a stand-up comedian and rapper. As an actor, he is best known for his role as Vincent in EastEnders. Theatre work includes the West End production of Tennessee Williams’s Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, which also enjoyed a sell-out run on Broadway, and two years playing Donkey in the hit musical theatre adaptation of Shrek.

Ruth Everett’s work with the Royal Shakespeare Company includes Don Quixote, Dr Faustus and The Alchemist, and she has also appeared in Rupert Goold’s production of Medea at The Almeida, ‘Tis Pity She's A Whore (Cheek By Jowl) and King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe. Her TV appearances include Sherlock and Holby City for BBC One and The Bill for ITV.

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune began life off-Broadway with Kathy Bates and F Murray Abraham and McNally wrote the screenplay for the 1991 film version starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer.

The play has been described as an ‘anti-rom com’. It is set in a 1980s New York City apartment where two down-on-their-luck middle-aged lovers are on a first date. Frankie’s a cynical waitress with a dry sense of humour who is too wounded to fall in love again but starry-eyed Johnny, an over-eager chef with his own demons, wants to give romance a second chance.

Director Mark Calvert said, “it’s a beautifully brilliant play. Every time I read it, it takes on a new intensity; it’s quite beautiful—sad, as well as funny.

“I’m really excited to be working with designer Rhys Jarman again—the entire play takes place in one, small New York apartment so we’ve reimagined the space—one of the biggest stages in the country—to create an intimate setting. By staging it in traverse, the audience can literally get up close and personal as these two ordinary people lay bare their vulnerability and try to figure out whether it’s more than a one-night stand.”

79-year-old Terrence McNally is one of America’s best known and successful playwrights, having won four Tony Awards and been nominated for three more, the most recent in 2015. Amongst his best known works are The Ritz (1975, filmed in 1976), A Perfect Ganesh (1993) and the very controversial Corpus Christi (1998). Work in musical theatre includes The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime and the American version of The Full Monty.

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