Snapdragon Productions' TOAST to Launch UK Tour; NYC Run Planned

Snapdragon Productions today announce a UK tour of their acclaimed revival of Richard Bean's Toast, following a successful run at Park Theatre in 2014. Matthew Kelly and Simon Greenall reprise their roles as Nellie and Cecil, with full cast to be announced soon. The tour begins at the Rose Theatre Kingston from 4 - 13 February before playing eight further dates finishing at Nottingham Theatre Royal.

Also announced today is a five-week run at 59E59 Theaters in New York from 20 April - 22 May, where the production will open the prestigious Brits Off Broadway season.

Another Sunday night shift. The smell of bread baking. The industrial thump, thump, thump of the machines that never stop. The ovens are cranked up to full blast, the factory is humming, and everyone wants to be somewhere else.

But this shift is going to be different. Because when a crisis hits the factory, the men have more to lose than just their wages...

The play, which was Bean's first to be professionally produced on stage, is based on the year he spent working in a mass production bread plant as a teenager, with each character inspired by someone he worked alongside.

Matthew Kelly said today, "Richard Bean's Toast returns in 2016 touring to some of my favourite theatres in the UK before hitting New York in the spring. It's a big hearted, very funny, incredibly moving play about real people and I feel very honoured to be playing one of them again."

In 2011 Richard Bean became the first writer to win the Evening Standard Award for Best Play for two plays, The Heretic and One Man, Two Guv'nors. He also received the 2011 Critics' Circle Award for Best Play and 2012 Whatsonstage Award for Best New Comedy, both for One Man, Two Guv'nors. The New York production of One Man, Two Guv'nors was awarded the 2012 Outer Critics' Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play. His recent credits include Great Britain (National Theatre), Made in Dagenham: The Musical (Adelphi Theatre) and Pitcairn (Chichester Minerva Theatre / Shakespeare's Globe). Bean's other work includes Under the Whaleback (George Devine Award), The Heretic, Honeymoon Suite (Pearson Play of the Year), Harvest (Critic's Circle Best New Play), The House of Games, a new version of The Hypochondriac, The Big Fellah, England People Very Nice, The Mentalists, The English Game, Up on Roof, Pub Quiz is Life, In the Club, The God Botherers, Mr England.

Matthew Kelly plays Nellie. For theatre, his credits include Volpone, The Jew of Malta and Love's Sacrifice (RSC), Kafka's Dick (Theatre Royal Bath), Snapdragon's production of Toast (Park Theatre), Twelfth Night (Liverpool Everyman), To Sir With Love (Royal & Derngate and UK tour), The History Boys (Sheffield Crucible), The Seagull (Southwark Playhouse), God of Carnage (Nuffield, Southampton), Educating Rita (Menier Chocolate Factory and Edinburgh Festival), Legally Blonde, Spamalot (UK tours), Buried Child (Curve Leicester), Waiting For Godot (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Sign Of The Times and Lend Me A Tenor - The Musical (both West End), Comedians (Lyric Hammersmith), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Trafalgar Studios), Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare's Globe), Victory (Arcola Theatre), Amadeus (Wilton's Music Hall), Mirandolina (Manchester Royal Exchange), Endgame (Liverpool Everyman), Forgotten Voices (Riverside Studios) and Of Mice and Men(Birmingham Repertory Theatre and West End - Olivier Award for Best Actor). For television, his work includes Cold Blood, Bleak House, Egypt: The Pharaoh And The Showman and The Temple Of The Sands, Moving On, Benidorm, MI High, My Family At War, Forensic Casebook, City Hospital and Stars in their Eyes; and for film, Showreel, Tribute, Two Stops To Bank and Tortoise. ?

Simon Greenall plays Cecil. Simon's theatre credits include Seven Stories (Mermaid Theatre) and The Merchant of Venice, (Royal Exchange). Simon's television career includes work with Armando Iannucci, Harry Enfield and Steve Coogan, most notably roles in I'm Alan Partridge, Hoff the Record, Peter Kay's Car Share, Newzoids, The Octonauts, Fried, Cardinal Burns, W1A, Starlings, Inspector George Gently, Common People, It's Kevin, Pete vs Life, Horne and Corden, Trapped, Harry and Paul, Holy Flying Circus, The Impressions Show, The Wrong Door, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Saxondale, Lead Balloon, The Charlotte Church Show, Bremner, Bird and Fortune, Funland, Popetown, Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, Smith and Jones and Barking. His film credits include the role of Michael in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Wimbledon, Acts of Godfrey, The Quiet Assassin and Tube Tales. For radio, Simon's work includes many series for BBC Radio 4, Talkback, Tiger Aspect, Above The Title and Hat Trick Comedy.

Eleanor Rhode directs. Her production of When We Were Women recently opened at the Orange Tree Theatre. Her recent theatre work includes Teddy by Tristan Bernays and Dougal Irvine (Southwark Playhouse), Toast by Richard Bean and Thark by Ben Travers/Clive Francis (Park Theatre), two sell-out runs of Generous, and the London premiere of The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey, and the first London revival in over 30 years of A Life by Hugh Leonard (all Finborough Theatre). Her international work includes the world première of the musical For All That for Centerstage Theater, Seattle. Other directing includes The Gypsy Thread (National Theatre Studio), Can I Be Straight With You? (Bush Theatre), The Error of Their Ways (Cockpit Theatre), A Number (Camden People's Theatre), This Lime Tree Bower (Edinburgh Festival) and staged readings of The Session (Pushkin House), The Promised Land (Tristan Bates), The Geese of Beverly Road (Theatre503) and Photos of You Sleeping (Hampstead Theatre). Eleanor works frequently on the development of new works, including with Paul Herzberg on the London premiere of The Dead Wait and with Rick Bland on Full of Bees (both Park Theatre).

Snapdragon Productions

Snapdragon Productions was founded in 2009 by producer Sarah Loader and director Eleanor Rhode, to bring neglected and unknown works to new audiences.

Their productions in development include a No. 1 UK Tour of their production of Toast by Richard Bean, which will open at the Rose Theatre Kingston in February 2016, and a revival of Vassa by Maxim Gorky in a new adaptation by Luke Barnes, which will premiere in autumn 2016.

The company's co-production with the Orange Tree Theatre of Sharman Macdonald's When We Were Women opened on 7 September and they recently presented the world première of Teddy by Tristan Bernays and Dougal Irvine at Southwark Playhouse.

Between 2013 and 2015 Snapdragon presented three plays at Park Theatre in their 200-seat space including: a revival of Richard Bean's debut play Toast earned Snapdragon a nomination for 'Best Producer' in the 2015 Off West End Awards; the London premiere of The Dead Wait by Paul Herzberg, starring the playwright (December 2013); and a multi-award nominated revival of Thark by Ben Travers which marked the world premiere of its new adaptation by actor / writer Clive Francis (August 2013).

As Associate Producers, Snapdragon worked with Nicola Seed on her revival of Accolade by Emlyn Williams, which played at the St. James' Theatre from November 2014.

Snapdragon previously enjoyed an extensive collaboration with the Finborough Theatre, where they produced A Life by Hugh Leonard, The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey, Barrow Hill by Jane Wainwright, Generous by Michael Healey, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Me and Juliet and A Day at the Racists by Anders Lustgarten which was nominated for the 2010 TMA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Regional Theatre.

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