Jermyn Street Theatre Announces Casting Of ABOUT LEO

Jermyn Street Theatre announces casting for the world premiere of Alice Allemano's About Leo, the opening production in their Autumn Season. The cast of four will comprise Eleanor Wyld as journalist Eliza Prentice (Hamlet - RSC UK/US Tour, The Alchemist, Don Quixote and Doctor Faustus - RSC, Misfits - C4, Black Mirror - C4); Nigel Whitmey as prolific surrealist Max Ernst (The Crown Series 3 - Netflix, The Red Barn - Royal National Theatre, Other People - Royal Court Theatre and Saving Private Ryan - Film), twice Olivier Award nominee Susan Tracy as the elder version of Leonora Carrington (Anna Christie and Three Sisters - RSC, Cyril's Success - Finborough Theatre, A Day by the Sea - Southwark Playhouse) and Phoebe Pryce as Leonora Carrington in her earlier years ( A Passage To India - Royal & Derngate / Park Theatre, The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall - Octagon Theatre Bolton/Theatre Royal York, The Merchant Of Venice - Shakespeare's Globe/Lincoln Centre)

About Leo tells the story of Eliza Prentice - millennial, Londoner, wannabe journalist who has arrived in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead. She is armed with a Dictaphone, a family connection, and a lot of questions. But the greatest living Mexican artist, Leonora Carrington, doesn't give interviews. She won't discuss her work. And she doesn't talk about Max.

Moving fluidly from modern Mexico to 1930s France, where the young Leo is involved in a notorious affair with the surrealist Max Ernst, this is an inspirational true story of art, freedom and living a life on one's own terms.

The British born painter Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) lived most of her life in Mexico. She is considered to be at the forefront of the surrealist movement and her work is known for its depictions of women and half-human beasts drawn from myth, folklore, religious ritual and the occult. She continues to be been exhibited in galleries across the world. Major retrospectives have been held recently at Tate Liverpool and Pallant House, Chichester and The Leonora Carrington Museum opened in the city of San Luis Potosí Mexico earlier this year.

This is Alice Allemano's first play. JMK Award-winning director Michael Oakley recently directed The Invisible (Bush Theatre) and The Life and Times of Fanny Hill (Bristol Old Vic).

About Leo is the first play in Jermyn Street Theatre's REBEL SEASON, which also includes Parents' Evening by Bathsheba Doran (October 3 to 27), Billy Bishop Goes To War By John Gray with Eric Peterson (October 31 to November 24 and Burke and Hare by Tom Wentworth (November 28 to December 21).

Jermyn Street Theatre is an art-house theatre in the heart of London's West End. The 70-seat studio opened in 1994, and has since won numerous awards and transferred many productions to the West End and Broadway. In summer 2017 Tom Littler became Artistic Director. Littler relaunched the venue as a producing house. Jermyn Street Theatre is a signatory to the Equity Fringe Agreement.

During the theatre's first year as a producing venue, it has staged world premieres of five full-length plays (including Howard Brenton's The Blinding Light), five one-act plays, two European premieres, and several revivals including the complete cycle of Noel Coward's Tonight at 8.30. Jermyn Street Theatre has also reported that its weekly sales are up by over 50%, and it has employed 28 female and 26 male actors.

Tickets: £10 - £30
100 tickets at £10 for under-30s for each production, and £15 preview tickets

Box office: 0207 287 2875 and online at www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

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