The Royal Shakespeare Company has revealed the full casts for Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and a new adaptation of Cervantes’ classic novel Don Quixote, both of which open in the Swan Theatre in spring 2016.
Doctor Faustus will involve Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan alternating at each performance the roles of the embittered academic Faustus and the demon Mephistopheles.
Grierson returns to the RSC after performing in associate director David Farr’s What Country, Friends, Is This? cycle, playing Ariel in The Tempest in 2012. He also appeared in Lanark: A Life in Three Acts at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2015.
Ryan was in the RSC’s 2013 production of As You Like It. Other RSC roles include Benvolio in Rupert Goold’s Romeo and Juliet at the Roundhouse in 2010.
They are joined by Will Bliss (Valdes / good angel), Jade Croot (Helen of Troy), John Cummins (Cornelius / evil angel), Ruth Everett (scholar / friar / deadly sin), Gabriel Fleary (emperor / gluttony / scholar), Theo Fraser Steele (duke / friar / deadly sin), Gemma Goggin (Cardinal of Lorraine), Natey Jones (Frederick / scholar), Richard Leeming (envy / scholar), Nicholas Lumley (Wagner / old man), Tom McCall (Benvolio / friar), Joshua McCord (Martino), Bathsheba Piepe (sloth / scholar / friar), Rosa Robson (scholar), Amy Rockson (duchess / scholar), Timothy Speyer (Pope) and Eleanor Wyld (Lucifer / scholar).
Doctor Faustus is directed by Maria Aberg and designed by Naomi Dawson. Lighting is by Lee Curran, music is composed by Orlando Gough with sound by Tom Gibbons. Movement is by Ayse Tashkiran. Fight director is Kate Waters and video is by Nathan Parker.
Doctor Faustus runs in the Swan Theatre from 4 February until 4 August 2016. Press night will be on Thursday 11 February.
As previously announced, David Threlfall takes on the title role and Rufus Hound will play Sancho Panza in a new stage adaptation of Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote.
Poet, writer and journalist James Fenton adapts the story which marks the 400th anniversary of the author’s death.
This will be the first time the RSC has performed the play which is directed by Angus Jackson. Previously he worked on the RSC production Oppenheimer by Tom Morton-Smith which transferred to the West End after a run at the Swan Theatre.
The cast of Don Quixote also includes Will Bliss, John Cummins, Ruth Everett, Gabriel Fleary, Gemma Goggin, Theo Fraser Steele, Natey Jones, Richard Leeming, Nicholas Lumley, Tom McCall, Joshua McCord, Bathsheba Piepe, Rosa Robson, Amy Rockson, Timothy Speyer and Eleanor Wyld.
Design is by Robert Innes Hopkins, with lighting by Johanna Town. Music is composed by Grant Olding, with sound by Jeremy Dunn. Fight director is Malcolm Ranson. Pippa Hill is literary manager and is in charge of dramaturgy.
Don Quixote runs in the Swan Theatre from 25 February until 21 May 2016. Press night will be on Thursday 3 March.