The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced the cast for Miss Littlewood, a new musical about revolutionary theatre director Joan Littlewood.
Clare Burt will make her RSC debut as Joan Littlewood. Her theatre credits include Ada in Flowers for Mrs Harris (based on the novel by Paul Gallico, book by Rachel Wagstaff, music and lyrics by Richard Taylor) at Sheffield Crucible in 2016 and Jan in Alecky Blythe’s London Road at the National Theatre in 2011.
Aretha Ayeh, Sandy Foster, Amanda Hadingue, Dawn Hope, Emily Johnstone and Sophia Nomvete will also play the part of Joan at different stages of her life.
The cast also includes Daisy Badger (Rosalie), Greg Barnett (Jimmie Miller / Cedric Price), Laura Elsworthy (Shelagh Delaney), Solomon Israel (Gerry Raffles), Natasha Lewis and Tam Williams (Murray Melvin).
Miss Littlewood will be directed by the RSC’s deputy artistic director Erica Whyman. Book, music and lyrics are by Sam Kenyon. He composed the music for the RSC’s Vice Versa by Phil Porter in 2017 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation in 2016. In 2010, Whyman and Kenyon directed Joan Littlewood's Oh! What a Lovely War for Northern Stage in Newcastle and on tour.
Kenyon said, “I’d always wondered about the imaginative moment when Fanny Brice became Funny Girl, when Gypsy Rose Lee became Gypsy, when Eva Perón became Evita. When I read in Joan Littlewood’s autobiography Joan’s Book that she’d quit RADA aged 19 and walked—walked!—to Manchester, I knew immediately that I was onto something.
“Then I found the most searing love letters buried in the centre of the book. I’ve written this in homage to the Stockwell-born ‘illegitimate’ daughter of a teenage mother who’s inspired theatre-makers worldwide and yet is barely known by her name.”
Miss Littlewood will be designed by Tom Piper. Lighting is by Charles Balfour, sound by Jonathan Ruddick, movement by Lucy Hind and video by Nina Dunn.
It runs in the Swan Theatre, Stratford from Friday 22 June until Saturday 4 August. Press night will be Tuesday 3 July.