Eileen O'Brien, Joe McGann & More to Star in Michael Wynne's HOPE PLACE at Liverpool Everyman

Rachel Kavanaugh directs Michael Wynne's remarkable new play Hope Place, a tender portrayal of family life and how memories, real and imagined, can shape our lives. The play was specially commissioned for the opening season at the new Everyman Theatre and elegantly captures the living history that is, the Liverpool Everyman.

A family gathers in their house on Hope Place following the death of their mother, but there is something up with eldest sister Maggie. Rattling around in the home she's lived in all her life, she searches for the truth within a sea of family folklore. Hope Place is a story of myths, memories and family secrets.

The cast is Eileen O'Brien (Being Eileen, BBC; Forget Me Not, Belvoir Theatre, Sydney, Everyman Unbound, Liverpool Everyman), Joe McGann (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Chichester Theatre; Lost Monsters, Liverpool Everyman), Tricia Kelly (Cannibals, Royal Exchange Theatre; Unprotected, Liverpool Everyman), Neil Caple (The Misanthrope, Liverpool Playhouse, Twelfth Night, Liverpool Everyman), Alan Stocks (Dead Heavy Fantastic and Twelfth Night, Liverpool Everyman), Ciaran Kellgren (The Heretic, Manchester Library Theatre; Shameless, Channel 4) and Michelle Butterly (Dead Heavy Fantastic, Liverpool Everyman, Noughts and Crosses; RSC).

Award-winning playwright Michael Wynne's returns to the Everyman, where his first play The Knocky was performed in 1997. His stage writing credits include Canvas (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Priory at the Royal Court, which won an Olivier award for Best New Comedy. Other credits include Rough Cuts (Royal Court), Tit/Teeth (Soho Theatre), Dirty Wonderland (Frantic Assembly), The People are Friendly (Royal Court), The Boy Who Left Home (Lyric Hammersmith) and Sell Out (Frantic Assembly). Wynne's television credits include Being Eileen and Lapland and he co-wrote the film My Summer of Love (BBC Films), which won the BAFTA for Best British Film and Evening Standard Film Award for Best Screenplay.

Director Rachel Kananaugh was Artistic Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 2006 to 2010 where her credits included: Hapgood, Uncle Vanya, Martha, Murmuring Judges, The Absence Of War and A Doll's House (Birmingham Repertory Theatre/UK tour). Her other theatre credits include: The Way of the World and The Music Man, A Small Family Business (Chichester Festival Theatre); Hilda (Hampstead Theatre); The Rivals (Bristol Old Vic); The Merry Wives Of Windsor and Alice In Wonderland (RSC); The Taming Of The Shrew, Cymbeline, The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, As You Like It, Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park).

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