Hampstead Theatre is delighted to announce the full cast and creative team for the world premiere of Alexis Zegerman’s vivid, new play, The Fever Syndrome. Directed by Roxana Silbert, The Fever Syndrome will run from 19 March until 23 April 2022.

Lisa Dillon (Cranford, BBC One; Hapgood, Hampstead Theatre), Jake Fairbrother (Skyfall, EON Productions; Hamlet, National Theatre), Alexandra Gilbreath (Not Going Out, BBC One; The Provoked Wife, Royal Shakespeare Company), Robert Lindsay (My Family, BBC One; Anything Goes, Barbican), Sam Marks (Doctor Who, BBC One; Richard II, Royal Shakespeare Company), Bo Poraj (Miranda, BBC One; Raya, Hampstead Downstairs) and Alex Waldmann (The Mikvah Project, Orange Tree; Julius Caesar, Royal Shakespeare Company) will perform in this thrilling portrait of a brilliantly dysfunctional family. They are joined by Nancy Allsop and Charlotte Pourret Wythe.

Director Roxana Silbert will be joined by designer, Lizzie Clachan; lighting designer, Matt Haskins; sound designer, Max Pappenheim; movement director, Wayne Parsons; dialect, Stephen Kemble; casting director, Helena Palmer CDG; and assistant director, Segen Yosef.

Roxana Silbert said:

“The Fever Syndrome is an epic family drama and I can’t wait to bring Alexis’ vibrant play to life with this tremendous team of artists. It’s a multi-generational feast of complicated relationships, festering grudges and explosive feelings.”

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“You have to ignore the dissenters… You have to be a god, or the heart transplant would never have happened.”

Prof. Richard Myers, the great IVF innovator, is virtually a secular saint because of the thousands of babies he has created throughout his career.  Now, his family gather to see him receive a lifetime achievement award.

This fractious group are more accustomed to debate than empathy, so it’s not long before the family home in the Upper West Side of Manhattan is once again alive with dispute: conflicting Thanksgiving memories, polarised opinions on investment banking, and how best to care for their ailing father.  And crucially, who will inherit Richard’s wealth and Richard’s prestigious science institution?

The Fever Syndrome is presented by special arrangement with Manhattan Theatre Club.

Alexis Zegerman was Pearson Writer-in-Residence at Hampstead Theatre in 2007, where her play Lucky Seven premiered in 2008. A Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist for The Steingolds (2011), her other plays include I Ran The World (2003), Killing Brando (2004) and Holy Sh!t (2018). Zegerman also wrote the screenplay for The Honeymoon Suite.

Roxana Silbert’s sold-out production of Nell Leyshon’s Folk is currently running at Hampstead Theatre’s Downstairs. The Fever Syndrome will be her third Main Stage production at the theatre, following Al Blyth’s espionage thriller The Haystack (2020) and Marsha Norman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play ‘night, Mother (2021). She also recently directed Deborah Bruce’s tender new play Raya (2021).

 

The Fever Syndrome runs on the Main Stage from 19 March - 23 April.

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