New Adventures announces full cast for the World Premiere of
100 young people will make their debuts with New Adventures
New Adventures is delighted to announce full casting for the world premiere of Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet opening at Curve, Leicester on Monday 13 May 2019, as part of a UK tour to 13 venues including a four-week summer season at Sadler’s Wells from Wednesday 7 August to Saturday 31 August 2019.
As part of New Adventures’ ambition to support the next generation of on-stage talent Romeo and Juliet will feature the finest emerging male and female dancers from around the UK. The search began in April 2018 with a call-out for young dancers currently in training aged between 16 and 19. Attracting over 1000 applications and following a UK-wide audition tour, Young Cast members will perform at each venue alongside the New Adventures company.
Matthew Bourne said today “New Adventures’ Romeo and Juliet will be a celebration of youthful energy, talent and creativity both on and off-stage and, uniquely, in all aspects of Choreography, Design and Music through the appointment of a series of Young Associate Artists. As we enter our fourth decade as a company I’m finding the development of young talent ever more important and fulfilling. Our new company of Romeo and Juliet features a staggering 97 young dancers making their debuts with us; some are joining us as part of their third year of training, others have come through our Company initiatives such as Swan School, A Summer Adventure and of course, our production of Lord of the Flies which inspired so many young men to seek careers in dance. This time we have focused on nurturing young male and female dancers, and I have been overwhelmed by the talent that we have had to choose from throughout the UK. I’m particularly happy to be working alongside my Young Associate Choreographer, Arielle Smith, an exceptional young dancemaker of great maturity and vision. In turn, after 30 years as a professional choreographer, I look forward to being refreshed and inspired by what this team of young artists will bring to Shakespeare’s classic tale of tragic conflict and young love”.
As previously announced the title roles of ‘Romeo’ and ‘Juliet’ will be played by six New Adventures rising stars and two exciting new dancers making their professional debuts.
Creating the role of Juliet will be Cordelia Braithwaite, currently performing as ‘Cinderella’ on the international tour; Seren Williams, who joined New Adventures in 2016 with Matthew Bourne’s award-winning production of The Red Shoes and Bryony Harrison who is making her debut with New Adventures on tour with Matthew Bourne’s legendary production of Swan Lake.
The role of Romeo will be created by Andrew Monaghan, currently ‘The Pilot’ in Cinderella, Paris Fitzpatrick who is playing the ‘Angel’ in Cinderella and João Carolino who joined the company in 2017 with Early Adventures.
Making their professional debuts with the company are Harrison Dowzell, as ‘Romeo’, who auditioned for the Young Cast in Nottingham, and Bryony Wood, as ‘Juliet’, discovered during the Young Cast auditions in Southampton. Both are in their graduate years at Performers College and Tring Park School for the Performing Arts respectively.
They are joined by leading New Adventures artists, Madelaine Brennan, Daisy May Kemp, Danny Reubens and Daniel Wright who will create the “adult” world of Romeo and Juliet.
Ben Brown, Reece Causton, Jackson Fisch, Kate Lyons, Stephen Murray, Matthew Petty, Mark Samaras and Catrin Thomas who will come to this production direct from our USA Tour of Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella.
In addition there are fifteen young artists making their debut with New Adventures: Callum Bowman, Natasha Chu, Gaby Conn, Louis Fukuhara, Monique Jonas, Sharol Mackenzie, Hannah Mason, Asher Rosenheim, Chris Thomas and Roisin Whelan; along with Benjamin Derham from Canterbury and Cameron Flynn from Aberdeen who both performed in the Young Cast in the acclaimed New Adventures production of Lord of the Flies in 2014; and Alexander Fadayiro at Central School of Ballet, Jana Baldovino at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance and Stanley Duventru-Huret at Urdang Academy who are completing their third year of dance training while on tour with Romeo and Juliet.
In addition to the full time cast above we will be joined by 6 young cast members (81 in total) at each venue making their debut with New Adventures. CLICK HERE to meet the Young Cast and find out more about them.
New Adventures is committed to finding and developing diverse young talent from across the UK. Since Lord of the Flies in 2014 New Adventures has been supporting young dancers from this production on their journey into training and professional work. The company have delivered various initiatives, including Swan School, two week-long intensives designed to prepare graduate level dancers for the audition process.
Continuing New Adventures’ commitment to developing off-stage talent we have recruited a team of Young Associate Artists to work alongside the Artistic team in the creation of this world premiere production. Arielle Smith joins as Young Associate Choreographer; Elin Steele as Young Associate Set & Costume Designer and Ali Hunter as Young Associate Lighting Designer.
Romeo and Juliet is directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne, collaborating with his entire New Adventures Associate Artistic team; Etta Murfitt, Associate Artistic Director, set and costume design by Lez Brotherston; lighting by Paule Constable; sound by Paul Groothuis; and new orchestrations of the Prokofiev score by Terry Davies, played live at every venue by The New Adventures Orchestra conducted by Brett Morris.
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