Cast Announced For THE SPHERE OF LIGHT Premiering At Hever Castle In August
The Sphere of Light gives a brand-new slant to the gruesome fate that befell the Boleyn family and demonstrates just how little has changed in five hundred years.
The cast has been announced for Ann Henning Jocelyn's new play The Sphere of Light. Presented as a showcase at this year's Hever Castle Theatre Festival, this authentic historic play endorsed by Tudor experts uncovers the hidden histories of the famous Boleyn women.
The Sphere of Light gives a brand-new slant to the gruesome fate that befell the Boleyn family and demonstrates just how little has changed in five hundred years of serious challenges faced by women. The women of The Sphere of Light will be led by Sarah O'Toole (Pride and Prejudice, Gate Theatre, Dublin; Anna |UnwinKarenina, Razed Curtain, Glasgow; Measure for Measure, Theatrecorp, Galway) returning to the role of Anne Boleyn, having worked with the company on previous evolutions of The Sphere of Light. O'Toole was recently awarded Reale Film Festival Best Actress award for short film, Mystic Minnie. She is joined by recent graduate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Maud May, as Mary Boleyn (Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Globe; Much Ado About Nothing, Bard in Botanics). Elizabeth Boleyn will be played by veteran actor Elaine Montgomerie. With countless appearances on film, TV and stage, in recent years Montgomerie has been a commanding (Londonist) Lady Eliza in the West End production of Only Our Own and Madame de Pompadour in I Shall be Remembered at Edinburgh Festival and on tour in Australia. Award-winning actor and vocalist Kitty Whitelaw (Selkie, Vault Festival – “Festival Spirit" Award Winner 2016; Jagged Edge, Rich Mix) will portray Jane Boleyn.
Set partly in Hever Castle, the Boleyn family seat, the play shows the unknown nephew of Anne and Mary exploring what went on behind Hever's closed doors. George Boleyn, Dean of Lichfield
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will be played by Julian Bird (Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe; King Lear, The Rose Bankside; Three Sisters, Arts Theatre West End). His superb performance (Financial Times) of Sigmund Freud in Freud's Last Session at the Kings Head Theatre was described as movingly vulnerable by The Stage. He will be joined by Robert Madeley as George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, doubling as the Balladeer. Madeley (Frankenstein, Arts Theatre, New York City/American national tour; A Midsummer Night's Dream, New York City/American national tour; Macbeth, Rose Theatre) has worked extensively in theatre throughout the UK, Europe and North America. As a musician he worked with Nick Lloyd Webber on The Autumn Festival at Blenheim Palace and Art in Action 2015.
Unfolding like a detective story, The Sphere of Light gives a brand new slant to the doomed events that befell the family, dispelling age-old myths of megalomania, sexual obsession, ruthless ambition and madness. Ann Henning Jocelyn's connection to the Boleyn family has inspired the research of this piece. Jocelyn's husband, the 10th Earl of Roden, descends from Lord Hunsdon, Mary Boleyn's son by, presumably, Henry VIII. She writes internationally published and performed books and plays and is also a renowned translator of authors such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Henning Mankell and Jon Fosse.
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