HERDING CATS Will Be Performed at the Soho Theatre and Streamed Online

Oliver Roth's OHenry Productions and Stellar, in association with Soho Theatre, today announce a transatlantic production of Herding Cats by Lucinda Coxon, combining live in-person and streamed theatre. Marking a new type of international collaboration, the production is simultaneously accessible online to audiences across the globe via Stellar and in person, with social distancing in line with current UK government guidelines, at Soho Theatre. Running 20 - 23 May 2021 - with press performance on 20 May, Herding Cats is a Stellar Original production.

This production features two actors performing for an in-person audience on Soho Theatre's stage with a third actor performing live via video from the United States. Directed by Anthony Banks - reunited with Coxon following their collaboration on the world première production - this revival utilises the creative technology pioneered during the pandemic, and combines it with the raw intimacy of in-person performance. The full cast will be announced shortly.

Herding Cats is a chillingly funny play about a generation negotiating intimacy and independence in the 21st century. Meeting the demands of modern life is as impossible as herding cats for Justine, Michael and Saddo. To deal with work, Justine talks - a little too much - to her roommate Michael who earns a living by chatting with strangers like Saddo. But all three will soon find that in a cold, disconnected world, words may not be enough.

Playwright Lucinda Coxon said, "Ten years on from the première of Herding Cats, I'm excited to share the story with audiences once again. It strikes me that the play's exploration of acute loneliness and of the striking inequality between genders and generations feels incredibly of the moment, particularly as I reflect on the events of the last year."

Anthony Banks, director, also commented, "I directed the first production of Herding Cats over a decade ago and I can't wait to revisit the characters of Justine and Michael. Returning to direct a new production of the play, the universe around it is drastically different. Justine's rant about the property market has become an austere reality for young adults. The #MeToo movement has busted characters like Justine's boss out of the safety of their back-offices and gender identity is recognised not only by the health service but also by education. We're entering the twenties reassessing each other, it's a bumpy ride, like herding cats. Like Michael, over the last twelve months, many of us experienced extraordinary isolation. The play explores disappointment - in the footsteps of Beckett and Chekhov - but it also contains a rallying, raging cry for fairness, for equality, for justice."

Lucinda Coxon's theatre writing credits include Alys, Always; Herding Cats, Happy Now, The Eternal Not, Nostalgia, The Shoemaker's Wife, Vesuvius, Wishbones, Three Graces, The Ice Palace and Waiting at the Water's Edge. Her screenwriting credits include the multiple award-winning The Danish Girl starring Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, The Crimson Petal and the White starring Romola Garai for BBC, Wild Target starring Emily Blunt, The Heart of Me starring Paul Bettany and Helena Bonham-Carter and The Little Stranger starring Domnhall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson.

Anthony Banks has directed world premieres of many new plays including The Girl On The Train (West End/National Tour), Nick Dear's Hogarth's Progress (Rose Kingston,; Ryan Craig's Games For Lovers (Vaults), Kevin Elyot's Twilight Song (Park Theatre), Jim Cartwright's Raz (West End/UK tour), Lucinda Coxon's Herding Cats (Hampstead Theatre/Theatre Royal Bath); James Graham's Bassett (Bristol Old Vic), Dennis Kelly's DNA (UK tour), Bryony Lavery's Cesario and More Light, Lucinda Coxon's The Eternal Not and Michael Lesslie's Prince of Denmark (National Theatre), Snoo Wilson's Pignight (Menier Chocolate Factory), Mark Ravenhill's The Experiment (Soho Theatre/Berliner Ensemble). He has also directed some twentieth century classics including Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel by Joseph O'Connor, Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie (Theatre Royal Bath), Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train; Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight and Dial M For Murder (UK tours) and Tennessee Williams' The Hotel Plays. Banks was an associate director at The National Theatre 2004-2014 where he commissioned and developed a hundred new plays for NT Connections.

The additional creative team includes Olivier-nominee lighting designer Howard Hudson (&Juliet - Olivier nomination, West End, In the Heights King's Cross Theatre), costume designer Susan Kulkarni (Secret Cinema), video designer Andrzej Goulding (& Juliet, West End, Groundhog Day, Broadway), set designer Grace Smart (Susanna, Royal Opera House), and sound designers Ben and Max Ringham (Blindness, Donmar Warehouse, Cyrano de Bergerac, West End - Olivier nomination).

Learn more at http://herdingcatsplay.com/

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