Michael Wynne’s remarkable new play Hope Place, a tender portrayal of family life and how memories, real and imagined, can shape our lives makes its world premiere at the Everyman from 9th to 31st May. 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. The production features a host of well-known Liverpool actors, including Joe McGann and Eileen O’Brien and is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh.
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.
Maggie is played by Eileen O’Brien who was last on the Everyman stage in Macbeth in 2011. Eileen played Rita in the Michael Wynne B.B.C. T.V. show Being Eileen; her stage credits include Forget Me Not, Belvoir Theatre, Sydney and Everyman Unbound, Liverpool Everyman. Playing Maggie’s brothers and sister are Joe McGann, Neil Caple and Tricia Kelly. Joe McGann’s stage credits include Lost Monsters at Liverpool Everyman and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Chichester Theatre. Neil Caple comes straight form Twelfth Night the opening production at the new Everyman and has also appeared in The Misanthrope at Liverpool Playhouse. Tricia Kelly last performed at the Everyman in Unprotected in 2006 her other stage credits include Cannibals, Royal Exchange Theatre.
The cast also includes Alan Stocks (Dead Heavy Fantastic and Twelfth Night, Liverpool Everyman), Michelle Butterly (Benidorm, I.T.V.; Dead Heavy Fantastic, Liverpool Everyman),Ciaran Kellgren (The Heretic, Manchester Library Theatre; Shameless, Channel 4) and Emma Lisi (Alma Mater, Fish and Game; Book Ends, Bristol Old Vic)
Award-winning playwright Michael Wynne 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 (B.B.C. Films), which won the B.A.F.T.A. for Best British Film and Evening Standard Film Award for Best Screenplay.
Director Rachel Kavanaugh was Artistic Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 2006 to 2010 where her credits included: Uncle Vanya, Martha, Murmuring Judges, The Absence Of War and A Doll’s House. Her other theatre credits include: The Way of the World and A Small Family Business (Chichester Festival Theatre);The Merry Wives Of Windsor and Alice In Wonderland (RSC); The Taming Of The Shrew, Cymbeline, The Two Gentlemen Of Verona and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park).
Tickets for Hope Place are available from Everyman and Playhouse Theatres, online at www.everymanplayhouse.com or via the box office on 0151 709 4776. Tickets are priced from £10 – £18. There is a twilight performance of Hope Place on Wednesday 21st May at 5.30pm.