Godchild: Full casting announced

Hampstead Downstairs/The Peter Wolff Trust Present
GODCHILD
Writer Deborah Bruce
Director Michael Attenborough
Designer Francesca Ready
Lighting Oliver Fenwick
Sound John Leonard
31 October – 30 November 2013

CASTING ANNOUCEMENT

‘I’m so OLD. I feel like I’m 19, but I can’t be because she is. That’s what 19 looks like, there she is.’

Pearl Chanda, Michael Shaeffer and Chook Sibtain join Tracy-Ann Oberman in Deborah Bruce’s dark comedy, directed by Michael Attenborough.

Lou likes to feel her life is carefree and without ties. But this comes to an abrupt halt when her 19 year old god-daughter Minnie moves in to take up a place at university. Minnie’s arrival reveals Lou’s life to be not as it seems. Her relationships are complicated, her neighbours are closing in on her, and the clock is ticking. What does it mean to be a grown up? Director turned writer Deborah Bruce explores the inescapable differences between feeling 19 and being 19.

An exciting new talent, Deborah’s play The Distance has recently been nominated for The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Hampstead Downstairs is delighted to welcome Hampstead Theatre’s former Artistic Director Michael Attenborough for the first time. His most recent credits as Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre include King Lear, Reasons to be Pretty and Measure for Measure.

Tracy-Ann Oberman makes her Hampstead Downstairs debut following the sell-out run of Old Money on the Main Stage earlier this year. Her most recent theatre credits include Boeing! Boeing! (Comedy Theatre) and Earthquakes in London (Headlong/National Theatre). Television includes Doctor Who, EastEnders and Monroe.

Having only graduated from RADA this year, Pearl Chanda has already appeared in Headlong’s The Seagull, an untitled Mike Leigh film and in Holby City.

Michael Shaeffer’s many theatre roles include_ Friday Night Sex_ (Royal Court), Table and London Road (National Theatre), and All About My Mother (Old Vic). TV includes Luther, Black Mirror, Mrs Biggs, Parade’s End and Game of Thrones. Film includes Broken (dir. Rufus Norris), Anna Karenina (dir. Joe Wright) and Trance (dir. Danny Boyle).

Chook Sibtain’s theatre appearances include Othello, The Absence Of War, Murmuring Judges and The Wind In The Willows (National Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (RSC), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe) and King Lear (Almeida). TV includes Hustle, Dr Who, Bad Girls, Footballer’s Wives and Eastenders. Film includes VP (Take Cover Films) and Ghost Recon (Ridley Scott Films)

Hampstead Downstairs is an essential part of Hampstead Theatre and its programming. Under Artistic Director Edward Hall and Executive Producer Greg Ripley-Duggan this small studio space is used to nurture work-in-progress, and the shows are produced to the highest standard that their very small budgets allow. The work is presented free from commercial pressures and without ‘official’ critical assessment, but in front of a paying audience who influence the future of the work by offering feedback both in the theatre and on social media. The aim is to identify and develop plays which might have the potential to move to our Main Stage or to larger stages elsewhere.