Newcastle's Live Theatre has announced casting for its autumn production, the world première of Ron Hutchinson's Flying into Daylight.
The cast of the two-hander, which tells the story of Virginia who walks out on everything she knows, leaving the security of her mundane British life, to travel 12,000 miles to Buenos Aires to learn the Tango, will be Summer Strallen and Jos Vantyler. The play will be directed by Ron Hutchinson and Live's artistic director Max Roberts and the music will be composed and played live by Julian Rowlands, one of Europe’s leading Tango musicians.
Summer Strallen's credits include Dale Tremont in Top Hat (Aldwych), Maria in The Sound of Music (London Palladium), Company (Queens Theatre), Paradise Moscow (Opera North), Dick Whittington (Barbican), The Boyfriend and A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park) and Cats (New London Theatre and on national tour).
Jos Vantyler won a Theatre Choice Award for Outstanding Performance in a new play and was nominated a second time for an Off-West End Award (Offie) for Best Male Performance of 2012 for his portrayal of the promoter of the Dance Marathon contest in Dead on Her Feet, also written by Ron Hutchinson. He has appeared in the all-star cast of King Lear at the Old Vic in 2013 and in Love’s Labours Lost for the 20th anniversary of Northern Broadsides in 2011. Other work includes Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge and the Broadway transfer of Prophecy.
Ron Hutchinson is a screenwriter currently based in Los Angeles who won an Emmy Award for Murderers Among Us; The Simon Wiesenthal Story. He has received four other Emmy nominations. He wrote his first television play Twelve Off The Belt for the BBC, and further television plays and series, including two series of Bird of Prey starring the late Richard Griffiths, and Connie, starring Stephanie Beecham.
His first stage play, Says I Says He, was produced at the Sheffield Crucible, Royal Court Theatre and Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles and led to his becoming Writer In Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Others of his plays which have been produced internationally include Moonlight and Magnolias at The Goodman Theatre, Chicago, The Tricycle and the Manhattan Theatre Club. West End productions include Steven Daldry's revival of Rat in the Skull (Olivier Award nominated) and Beau Brummel at the Haymarket, Leicester Square. He also adapted Mikhail Bulgakov’s Flight and Carl Zuckmayer's The Captain of Kopenick for the the National Theatre.
"As a new writing theatre we receive lots of scripts," said Max Roberts. "It is very rare indeed that I read a play and say ‘Wow, we should try and do this’. But that is exactly what happened when Ron Hutchinson’s new musical play came to us. The raw, passionate and distinctive music and dance of the Tango aligned with a beautifully written, compelling and life affirming narrative provides the basis of an inherently theatrical experience."
The production runs from 27 November to 20 December 2014.