BURIED CHILD Announces Final Casting, Including Charlotte Hope of GAME OF THRONES

Charlotte Hope (Myranda in Game of Thrones, Allied, A United Kingdom), Jack Fortune (King Lear, Route Irish, Sparkling Cyanide), Barnaby Kay (A Streetcar Named Desire, The Real Thing, Wuthering Heights) and Gary Shelford (Twelfth Night, Angry Young Man) join the previously announced multi award-winning, international star Ed Harris (forthcoming HBO series from J.J. Abrams & Jonathan Nolan; Westworld, Pollock, The Hours and The Truman Show), Golden Globe winner Amy Madigan (Twice in a Lifetime, Roe vs. Wade), and Jeremy Irvine (War Horse, The Railway Man, Now is Good) to complete the cast in Sam Shepard's Pulitzer & Obie prize winning play, Buried Child, following a critically acclaimed New York run earlier this year.

The New Group's critically acclaimed Off-Broadway revival of Buried Child, directed by Scott Elliott, will transfer to Trafalgar Studios in London for a strictly limited season from 14 November - 18 February 2017, with press night on 1 December.

Buried Child is the next unmissable New Group production, presented by Lisa Matlin, and Adam Speers for Ambassador Theatre Group, to transfer to London following the huge success of Jesse Eisenberg's play The Spoils in the West End, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kunal Nayyar and Alfie Allen.

Buried Child launched the career of one of America's greatest living playwrights, Sam Shepard. The play was awarded both a Pulitzer Prize and an Obie Award in 1979, and was subsequently nominated for five Tony Awards following its revival on Broadway in 1996. After working with film star Ed Harris in the film The Right Stuff in 1983, Shepard wrote the role of Eddie in his play Fool for Love for Harris' stage debut. Following that partnership, Buried Child is now the fifth of Shepard's plays that Harris has performed in, including Cowboy Mouth, True West and Simpatico. Oscar nominee Amy Madigan plays the wife of real life husband Harris on stage for the second time, following The Jacksonian in 2013. They have also featured in ten films together, including Harris' directorial debut Pollock in 2000, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Set in rural America as it was reeling from a recession, the downturn of the agriCultural Industry and with a rising popularity in highly conservative candidates, the similarity of the political atmosphere in 1979 and 2016 is compelling, especially in the run up to the American Presidential Election in November. Casting a brutal light on disenfranchised Americans, Buried Child is a dark, macabre and painfully funny family drama that is as relevant now as it was during it's first run almost 40 years ago.

Dodge (Harris) and Halie (Madigan) are barely hanging on to their farmland and their sanity while looking after their two wayward grown sons. When their grandson Vince (Irvine) arrives with his girlfriend Shelly (Hope), no one seems to recognize him, and confusion abounds. As Vince tries to make sense of the chaos, the rest of the family dances around a deep, dark secret. This wildly poetic and cuttingly funny take on the American family drama gleefully pulls apart the threadbare deluded visions of our families and our homes.

Charlotte Hope (Shelly) will be making her West End debut in Buried Child, following A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre. She most recently starred opposite Richard Gere and Peter Dinklage in Jon Avnet's film Three Christs of Ypsilanti, and can next be seen in the Robert Zemeckis's World War II action-romance Allied, with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, and in Amma Asante's A United Kingdom. She is best known for her recurring role as 'Myranda' opposite Iwan Rheon as Ramsay Bolton in hit HBO series Game of Thrones. Other film credits include Testament Of Youth, The Theory of Everything, The Invisible Woman and LES MISERABLES.

Jack Fortune's (Father Dewis) stage credits include Black Watch at the National Theatre of Scotland, and on international and UK tour, and King Lear at Bristol Old Vic. Jack's screen credits include Critical, Route Irish, Above Suspicion - Silent Scream, Law and Order, The Appropriate Adult, Dunkirk, North Square, Judge John Deed, Serious and Organised and Sparkling Cyanide.

Barnaby Kay's (Tilden) stage credits include Welcome Home, Captain Fox and A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar Warehouse, The Captain of Kopenick, Danton's Death and Closer all at the National Theatre, The Real Thing at the Old Vic, Eric Larue, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Herbal Ben, The Changeling and A Jovial Crew for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Dying for It at The Almeida Theatre, Raving and War & Peace at Hampstead Theatre, King Charles III at the Wyndham's Theatre, King of Prussia at Chichester Festival Theatre, Trust and Mouth to Mouth at The Royal Court Theatre, The Break of Day, Three Sisters, The Libertine and The Man of Mode all for Out of Joint, Macbeth at the Albery Theatre, Blues for Mister Charlie at the Tricycle Theatre, Arms & The Man on UK tour, and A Midsummer Night's Dream at Brooklyn Academy. Barnaby's screen credits include Treasure Island, Red Tails, Arn: The Knight Templar, AKA, Conspiracy, Eisenstein, Croupier, Shakespeare in Love, Oscar & Lucinda, The Man who Knew Too Little, Wallander, One Child, New Tricks, Frankie, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Dead Boss, Public Enemies, Without You, Wuthering Heights, The Fixer, The Passion, Lifeline, The Government Inspector, Spooks, Prime Suspect IV, Serious & Organised, Silent Witness, Blonde Bombshell, The Bill, The Castle, Jonathan Creek, Cracker and The Vet.

Gary Shelford's (Bradley) stage credits include Ross at Chichester Festival Theatre, The Orestia at Manchester Home, As You Like It and The Heresy Of Love both at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Ghost Stories at the Arts Theatre, The Good Person Of Sichuan and The Grapes of Wrath both at Mercury Theatre, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter's Tale & Henry V all for the Propeller Theatre Company, on world tour, The Stock Da'wa at Hampstead Theatre, Mad About The Boy at the National Theatre Studio and West Yorkshire Playhouse, The Shop at Bristol Old Vic, The Tin Horizon at Theatre 50, The Internationalist at The Gate Theatre, Shoot, Get Treasure, Repeat at The Gate/National Theatre, Angry Young Man at Trafalgar Studios, Present: Tense at Southwark Playhouse, Accidental Death of An Anarchist at Mercury Theatre, Animal Farm: One Man Show at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, and on world tour, 1 in 5 at Hampstead Theatre and Young Vic, Hamlet and Arabian Nights at Creation Theatre, Oxford, Who's Harry? at Pleasance, London, The Triumph of Love at the Watermill Theatre, A Midsummer Night's Dream at Bloomsbury Theatre, Shades at the Albery Theatre, Asleep Under the Dark at the Cheltenham Everyman Theatre, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? at the Apollo Theatre, West End, Matches For Monkeys at Chelsea Theatre, Market Boy at the National Theatre Studio and No Man's Land at the National Theatre. Gary's screen credits include Luther, Silent Witness, Holby City, My Family, The Quatermass Experiment, Eastenders, Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, The Scampi Trail, Charlotte Gray, A Portrait Of London, and Slapper.

Ed Harris (Dodge) made his directorial debut on the feature film Pollock, receiving an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his performance in the title role. His co-star, Marcia Gay Harden, won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar under his direction. Harris directed, starred in and co-wrote the screenplay for Appaloosa. He has been lauded for his performances in A History of Violence (Natl. Society of Film Critics Award), The Hours (Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG and BAFTA nominations), The Truman Show (Oscar nomination, Golden Globe Award) and Apollo 13 (Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, SAG Award). Most recently, Harris completed filming on Dean Devlin's thriller, Geostorm, James Franco's film adaptation of Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle, and starred opposite Franco in The Adderall Diaries. Some of his many film credits include Run All Night, Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer, Frontera, The Face of Love, Gone Baby Gone, The Way Back, Copying Beethoven, The Right Stuff, The Abyss, The Rock, The Human Stain, A Beautiful Mind, Stepmom, A Flash of Green, Places in the Heart, Alamo Bay, Sweet Dreams, Jacknife, State of Grace, The Third Miracle and Touching Home. On television, Harris will star in J.J. Abrams' and Jonathan Nolan's forthcoming Westworld for HBO. When last on HBO, Harris won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, along with Emmy and SAG nominations, for his portrayal of John McCain in the Jay Roach directed Game Change. He starred with Paul Newman in the HBO miniseries Empire Falls, for which he received Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Best Actor nominations. Other television credits include The Last Innocent Man, Running Mates, Paris Trout and Riders of the Purple Sage, for which he and his wife Amy Madigan, as co-producers and co-stars, were presented with the Western Heritage Wrangler Award for "Outstanding Television Feature Film." Harris starred in the world premiere of playwright Beth Henley's The Jacksonian at LA's Geffen Playhouse, and reprised his role the following year Off-Broadway for The New Group. Harris received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination ("Outstanding Solo Performance") and a Lucille Lortel Award nomination ("Outstanding Solo Show") for Wrecks at The Public Theater. He originated the role, with writer/director Neil LaBute, for the play's world premiere at the Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork, Ireland and won the 2010 LA Drama Critics Circle Award for "Best Solo Performance" for Wrecks at the Geffen Playhouse. His theatre credits include: Ronald Harwood's Taking Sides, Sam Shepard's Fool for Love (Obie), and Simpatico (Lucille Lortel Award "Outstanding Actor"), George Furth's Precious Sons

(Drama Desk Award), Prairie Avenue, Scar, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Grapes of Wrath, and Sweet Bird of Youth.

Amy Madigan (Halie) a critically acclaimed actress of film, television and stage, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the feature film Twice In A Lifetime. She also starred as art patroness Peggy Guggenheim in Pollock. Additional feature film credits include Sweetwater, The Lifeguard, Gone Baby Gone, Winter Passing, Loved, Female Perversions, The Dark Half, Uncle Buck, Field of Dreams, Nowhere to Hide, Streets Of Fire, Love Letters and Alamo Bay. Most recently, Madigan starred in Frontera. She stars next in the independent film STUCK. On television, Madigan most recently starred in Neil LaBute's Ten x Ten for DirecTV. She had recurring roles in J.J. Abrams' Fringe and ABC's Grey's Anatomy as Seattle Grace's resident psychiatrist. In addition to starring on the HBO series "Carnivàle, Madigan received a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for her performance in the telefilm Roe vs. Wade. She also starred in Lifetime's television film Living Proof. Additional television film credits include Lifetime's And Then There Was One, Shot in the Heart, HBO's The Laramie Project, Riders of the Purple Sage, Robert Altman's The Laundromat, Victims, In The Name of the People, Having Our Say, A Bright Shining Lie, Lucky Day, The Revolt of Mother and The Day After. On stage, Madigan starred in the critically-acclaimed productions of Beth Henley's The Jacksonian at The New Group (NY) and the Geffen Playhouse (LA). Other theater credits include Broadway's A Streetcar Name Desire, Mark Taper Forum's A Lie of the Mind, Manhattan Theatre Club's The Lucky Spot, Los Angeles Theatre Center's Stevie Wants To Play The Blues, LA's Prairie Avenue and Strasberg Theatre's production of In The Boom Boom Room. Most recently, Madigan directed the West Coast premiere of Off the King's Road at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles.

Jeremy Irvine is one of the most exciting young British actors of his generation. Irvine was discovered by Steven Spielberg for the starring role in his epic war film War Horse in 2011. Following this role, Irvine earned widespread critical acclaim for his role opposite Dakota Fanning in the independent film Now Is Good, leading critics to list him among Hollywood's fastest-rising stars, followed by Mike Newell's Great Expectations in which he starred as Pip. In 2013, he gained a reputation as a method actor after he dropped more than 25 pounds and performed his own torture scene stunts in the film adaptation of The Railway Man. Since then Irvine has starred in Stonewall, A Night in Old Mexico, The World Made Straight, Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, Bad Education: The Movie, and Beyond the Reach, in which he stars alongside Michael Douglas.

Irvine has a number of notable forthcoming films including Fallen - based on the bestselling book, Billionaire Boys Club, alongside Taron Egerton, Kevin Spacey and Suki Waterhouse, and This Beautiful Fantastic, alongside Jessica Brown Findlay, AnDrew Scott and Tom Wilkinson.

Sam Shepard had his first New York plays, Cowboys and The Rock Garden, produced by Theatre Genesis in 1963. For several seasons, he worked with Off-Broadway theater groups including La MaMa and Caffe Cino. Eleven of his plays have won Obie Awards including Chicago and Icarus's Mother (1965), Red Cross and La Turista (1966), Forensic and the Navigators and Melodrama Play (1967), The Tooth of Crime (1972), Action (1974), and Curse of the Starving Class (1976). Shepard was awarded a Pulitzer Prize as well as an Obie Award for his play Buried Child (1979). Fool for Love (1982) received the Obie for Best Play as well as for Direction. A Lie of the Mind (1985) won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1986 and the 1986 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Play. A revived Buried Child under the direction of Gary Sinise opened on Broadway in April 1996 and was nominated for a Tony Award. Kicking a Dead Horse (2007) and Ages of the Moon (2009) both received their world premieres at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Kicking a Dead Horse transferred to The Public Theater in New York and to The Almeida Theatre in London, and Ages of the Moon received its US premiere at Atlantic Theater Company in 2010. Heartless received its world premiere at Signature Theatre in New York in 2012. Shepard's latest play, A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations), was produced by Field Day Theatre Company in Derry, Ireland in 2013 and had its US premiere at Signature Theatre in 2014. Shepard wrote the screenplays for Zabriskie Point, Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas and Robert Altman's Fool for Love, a film version of his play of the same title. As writer/director, he filmed Far North and Silent Tongue in 1988 and 1992 respectively. As an actor he has appeared in the films Days of Heaven, Resurrection, Raggedy Man, The Right Stuff, Frances, Country, Fool for Love, Crimes of the Heart, Baby Boom, Steel Magnolias, Bright Angel, Defenseless, Voyager, Thunderheart, The Pelican Brief, Safe Passage, Hamlet and Don't Come Knocking, also co-written with Wim Wenders. He can currently be seen in the Netflix Original Series Bloodline in which he stars opposite Sissy Spacek. In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1992, he received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and in 1994, he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.

Scott Elliott (Director) is an award-winning director, filmmaker and the founding Artistic Director of The New Group, an award-winning New York Theater company. He was last in the West End with the smash hit production of The Spoils, which originally ran Off Broadway in 2015. Previous to this he directed Sam Shepard's Buried Child earlier this year, and Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur, David's Rabe's Sticks and Bones with Bill Pullman and Holly Hunter and Thomas Bradshaw's Burning. Other directing credits include works by Wallace Shawn, Mike Leigh, Francine Volpe, Trevor Griffiths, Joe Orton, Ayub Khan Din, Stephen Bill, Noel Coward, Clare Booth Luce, Anton Chekhov, Christopher Kyle, Arthur Miller, Jon Robin Baitz, Kiki and Herb, Tommy Nohilly, Erika Sheffer, Neil Simon and Bertolt Brecht.

Lisa Matlin (Producer) Broadway: Pippin (Tony Award for Best Musical Revival) at the Music Box Theatre, The Great Comet of 1812 (coming Nov. 16') at the Imperial Theatre; West End: The Spoils at the Trafalgar Theatre; Off Broadway with The New Group: The Jacksonian at the Acorn Theatre, Sticks and Bones, The Spoils and Buried Child all at The Pershing Square Signature Center; The Great Comet of 1812 at the American Repertory Theater, Cambridge MA; (Producer and Director) Documentary: Living with Tourettes. Ms. Matlin serves on the Board of Directors of the Tourette Syndrome Association and was awarded "Humanitarian of the Year". Additionally, she serves on the board and Executive Committee of The New Group.

The New Group (Scott Elliott, Artistic Director; Adam Bernstein, Executive Director) is an award-winning, artist-driven company with a commitment to developing and producing powerful, contemporary theater. Founded in 1995, the company was born of Artistic Director Scott Elliott's desire to develop a place for artists to experiment, take risks, and learn from each other without the pressures of commercial theater. While constantly evolving, we strive to maintain an ensemble approach to all our work and an articulated style of emotional immediacy in our acting and productions. In this way, we seek a theater that is adventurous, stimulating and most importantly "now", a true forum for the present culture. Most recent productions include the critically-acclaimed Buried Child with Ed Harris and Amy Madigan; Mark Gerrard's Steve, directed by Cynthia Nixon; and Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur. Other notable productions include Mike Leigh's Ecstasy, Goose-Pimples, Smelling a Rat, Abigail's Party, and Two Thousand Years; Ayub Khan Din's East is East and Rafta, Rafta...; Philip Ridley's The Fastest Clock in the Universe; Kevin Elyot's My Night with Reg; David Rabe's Sticks and Bones with Bill Pullman and Holly Hunter and Hurlyburly; The Kid; and Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind directed by Ethan Hawke. Over the past 21 years, The New Group has received more than 100 awards and nominations for excellence, including the Tony Award for Best Musical (Avenue Q). The New Group and Artistic Director Scott Elliott were honored with a Special Drama Desk Award "for presenting contemporary new voices, and for uncompromisingly raw and powerful productions." The company's 2016-2017 Season launches in November with Sweet Charity, starring two-time Tony Award winner Sutton Foster as Charity Hope Valentine, with original choreography by Joshua Bergasse, directed by Leigh Silverman; and continues with the U.S. premiere of Wallace Shawn's Evening at the Talk House, directed by Scott Elliott (January 2017); the world premiere of All the Fine Boys, a new play from writer and director Erica Schmidt (February 2017); and the world premiere of The Whirligig, by Hamish Linklater, directed by Scott Elliott, featuring Zosia Mamet (HBO's "Girls") and Golden Globe winner and Emmy Award nominee Maura Tierney ("The Affair") (May 2017).

BURIED CHILD

TRAFALGAR STUDIOS

14 NOVEMBER - 18 FEBRUARY 2017

Performances: Monday - Saturday at 7.30pm

Thursday & Saturday at 2.30pm

Press Night: 1 December (reviews from 2 December)

Ticket Prices: From £35

Address: Trafalgar Studios, 14 Whitehall,

Westminster, SW1A 2DY

Box Office: 0844 871 7632

Website: www.BuriedChildPlay.co.uk / www.atgtickets.com

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