Casting has been announced for the co-production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Public Theater in New York and Miami’s GableStage.
The latest RSC project presented in collaboration with Ohio State University (OSU), the play features five actors from each country.
The UK cast is headed by Jonathan Cake who plays Mark Antony. He last performed with the RSC in 1993 and has since appeared in numerous roles in theatre and on television both in the UK and the US.
His recent theatre work includes the title role in the Shakespeare Globe production of Coriolanus, Jason in Deborah Warner’s Medea in the West End and on Broadway, and Benedick in TFANA’s Much Ado About Nothing in New York.
Chukwudi Iwuji returns to the RSC after last appearing with the company in Michael Boyd’s award-winning 2007/2008 cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays in which he played Henry VI.
His recent theatre includes playing Buckingham in Sam Mendes’s Richard III as part of the Old Vic’s Bridge Project in both London and New York. He plays Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra.
The cast also includes Samuel Collings (Octavius), Ash Hunter (Pompey / Alexas / Scarus) and Sarah Niles (Charmian / Menas).
The US cast features Charise Castro-Smith (Octavia, Iras); Joaquina Kalukango (Cleopatra); Ian Lassiter (Agrippa, Thyreus); Chivas Michael (Mardian, Eros, soothsayer); and Henry Stram (Lepidus, Proculeius).
The creative team is also a mix of UK and US professionals, with the production being designed by RSC associate designer Tom Piper.
Lighting designer is Stephen Strawbridge, music is composed by Michael Thurber and movement director is Gelan Lambert—all from the US.
Rehearsals begin in the UK in September, directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who has radically edited the play and set it in the late 1700s on the eve of the Haitian revolution against the French.
The show will première in the RSC’s Swan Theatre in Stratford from 7 until 30 November before playing at the Colony Theater in Miami in January and the Public Theater in Manhattan in February.