Wheelchair user Amy Trigg is to play Laura Wingfield in Nottingham Playhouse’s production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.
Nottingham Playhouse is part of a consortium of regional theatres across the UK which are putting disabled artists and audiences at the centre of their programming.
During the six-year project called Ramps on the Moon, artists will be integrated into casts in a variety of ways such as using sign language, screen projections and live audio descriptions. Each of the theatres involved will also develop disabled audiences within their own communities.
Giles Croft, Nottingham Playhouse’s artistic director, said, “when programming this season we looked at how we could build towards the first production of The Ramps on the Moon project. In casting Amy Trigg in The Glass Menagerie, a brilliant young actress who happens to be a wheelchair user, we’re marking the start of a new approach to casting at Nottingham Playhouse, not only for our main stage but also within our Neville Studio.”
Trigg’s character has shunned the real world for one of fantasy and escapism: her menagerie of glass animals.
Her mother Amanda aims to find a gentleman caller for her shy, reclusive daughter. She is played by Susannah Harker who was Susan in Mike Leigh’s Abigail's Party at the Menier Chocolate Factory and Wyndham Theatre in 2012. She was nominated for a BAFTA when she played Mattie Storin in the 1990 BBC serial House of Cards.
Chris New plays Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie. He played the lead role in Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester in 2011, Simon Bliss in Noël Coward’s Hay Fever at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester in 2008 and Dromio of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2007.
Daniel Donskoy who plays Jim O’Connor completes the cast. He can currently be seen as a regular in the BBC4 series Detectorists.
Directed by Giles Croft, The Glass Menagerie runs From Friday 11 until Saturday 26 March. Press night will be Tuesday 15 March.