Nicolas Kent To Direct A WALK IN THE WOODS

Nicolas Kent will direct A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing, with Steven Crossley (Andrey Botvinnik) and Myriam Cyr (Joan Honeyman) reprising their roles from the Northern Stage, Vermont production. This powerful drama about US and Soviet nuclear arms negotiators' battle for supremacy has received nominations for a Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award and Olivier Award and will run at the Tricycle Theatre from 12 October to 12 November, with Press Night on 17 October.

Full of tension and humour, A Walk in the Woods shows how the relationship between the two arms negotiators evolves as they stroll in the woods above Geneva, away from the glare of the negotiating table. But will this escape lead to a true breakthrough or just more posturing?

In this revised version of the play, originally performed at Northern Stage, Vermont, a woman plays the role of the US negotiator. Nicolas Kent's decision to cast a woman in the role keeps the production topical, reflecting the more recent appointments of women such as Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Rodham Clinton to positions of diplomatic global power.

A Walk in the Woods, set in the Reagan-Brezhnev era of the Cold War, is particularly relevant given that just last week Hillary Rodham Clinton was urging China to persuade North Korea to re-join talks on nuclear disarmament, and the recent signing of Start 2 and its ratification by the Senate and the Duma this year. In 2009 just after his election President Obama made a ground-breaking speech in Prague saying:

‘Today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change.'

The original production of A Walk in the Woods ran on Broadway at the Booth Theater. It premiered in London at The Comedy Theatre in 1988, featuring Sir Alec Guinness, in his final stage role, as Andrey Botvinnik.

Before A Walk In The Woods, Steven Crossley last worked with Nicolas Kent in the critically acclaimed Guantanamo: Honor Bound To Defend Freedom when it opened in New York and San Francisco in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Crossley's other stage credits include Forgotten Voices at Riverside Studios, Measure for Measure at The National Theatre and on Broadway The Vertical Hour. He is also a member of the stage company Complicité. Steven's screen credits include Victoria's Men, Prime Suspect III, Measure For Measure and The Darkening. Steven is also an established voice artist and has recorded over 250 audio books.

Myriam Cyr is an established writer and actress. Her writing includes the critically lauded book Letters of a Portuguese Nun, which has been translated into eight languages and which Cyr herself has performed on stage in London and New York. In 2006 she was named the Poet Laureate for New Brunswick, Canada. Myriam's London stage credits include the title role in Stephen Berkoff's production of Salome at The National Theatre which also toured to Australia and Japan, The Women at The Old Vic Theatre and Madame de Sade at The Almeida Theatre. Myriam's screen credits include Le Secret de Jerome, which won her the Baillard D'Or at the Namur Film Festival and she is currently producing Hedda Gabler with her partners Maryam d'Abo and Christopher Hampton for their company Filmic Films, from Oscar winning Hampton's screen adaptation of the play.

Nicolas Kent, Artistic Director of the Tricycle Theatre, has most recently directed the critically acclaimed Tribunal Play Tactical Questioning : Scenes from the Baha Mousa Inquiry at the theatre. In 2010 he directed Greta Garbo Came to Donegal. He directed The Great Game: Afghanistan, which premiered at the Tricycle in 2009 and returned in 2010 for a limited run before embarking on a US Tour. In February this year The Pentagon commissioned two performances of the trilogy which were performed in Washington DC. Other productions Kent has directed as Artistic Director of the Tricycle include The Great White Hope, which he also staged for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Trouble in Mind, Wine in the Wilderness, A Love Song for Ulster, Macbeth, 10 Rounds, the 20th anniversary production of Mustapha Matura's Playboy of the West Indies, Walk Hard-Talk Loud, How Long Is Never? Darfur A Response and The War Next Door. He has directed all the Tricycle Tribunal Plays and the controversial Called To Account in which Tony Blair was put on trial for crimes of aggression against Iraq. His television directing credits include The Workshop, Pentecost, Sharing Time, Colour of Justice, Justifying War and Half the Picture. In 2006 Kent received an Evening Standard award for ‘pioneering political theatre' and last year received the Liberty Human Rights Arts award.

Lee Blessing's play Wood For The Fire was part of the Tricycle's season The Great Game: Afghanistan in 2010, which then went on a US Tour and was performed for the Pentagon. Blessing's other writing credits include Eleemosynary which earned him a 1997 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing and garnered three others for production, direction, and lead performance. Blessing has written other works for stage, film, and television and has won numerous awards including the American Theatre Critics Award, the Great American Play Award, and the George and Elisabeth Marton Award. Three of his plays have also been cited in Time magazine's list of the year's ten best. His script Cooperstown was made into a film that aired on Turner Network Television and, in 1993, won Blessing the Humanitas Prize and three nominations for Cable Ace Awards. His most recent works include Heaven's My Destination (2009), Into You (2009), Perilous Night (2008) and Great Falls (2008).

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