Upstart in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre presents
The World Premiere
Silent Planet
by Eve Leigh
First performed at the Finborough Theatre: Tuesday, 25 November 2014.
Silent Planet
by Eve Leigh
Cast in order of appearance
Gavriil | Graeme McKnight
Yurchak | Matthew Thomas
Guard | Aaron Vodovoz
Doctor | Kevin Hand
The action takes place in a psychiatric prison on an island, somewhere in the USSR, in 1978.
The performance lasts approximately seventy minutes.
There will be no interval.
Director | Tom Mansfield
Designer | Petra Hjortsberg
Lighting Designer | Rachel Bottomley
Sound Designer | Duncan Grimley
Movement Director | Jennifer Jackson
Casting Director | Georgia Fleury Reynolds
Stage Manager | Verena Prandstaetter
Assistant Director | Daniel Bailey
Producer | Rianna Dearden
Our patrons are respectfully reminded that, in this intimate theatre, any noise such as rustling programmes, talking or the ringing of mobile phones may distract the actors and your fellow audience-members.
We regret there is no admittance or re-admittance to the auditorium whilst the performance is in progress. Interval drinks may be ordered in advance from the bar.
KEVIN HAND
DOCTOR
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include The Breakfast Soldiers.
Theatre includes The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Library Theatre, Manchester), The Mystery of Father Brown (Swan Theatre, Worcester), Dinosaur (Arcola Theatre), Our Children Will Be Next, Aman (Theatre503), A Funhouse of Mirrors (Menier Gallery), Stealing Sweets and Punching People (The Phil Porter Company at the Nu-Write Festival, Croatia), Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Hothouse (Black Stripe Theatre, Japan).
GRAEME MCKNIGHT
GAVRIIL
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include The Wallace as part of the Scotland Decides season.
Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Theatre includes Penetrator (GBS Theatre), Cymbeline, The Brothers Karamazov and Dealing With Clair (RADA).
Film includes Aftermath and Death Defying Acts.
Television includes Outlander and Life of Riley.
MATTHEW THOMAS
YURCHAK
Theatre includes Coriolanus (Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre Wales), Arcadia, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Richard II, Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, Bristol), The Sea Plays (Old Vic Tunnels), Bronte (Shared Experience), One Flea Spare (Battersea Arts Centre) and Maudesley Project (Look Left Look Right). Film includes One Fine Day and Inside Lydia’s Head.
Television includes Spooks, Afterlife, Micawber, Never Never and The Case of Fiona Jones.
Radio includes Dixon of Dock Green, Slam Bangin’ Home, People’s History – Voices of the Powerless, Soldier Soldier, Missing and Spy Nozy and the Poets.
AARON VODOVOZ
GUARD
Trained at LAMDA.
Theatre includes Attempts on Her Life, The School of Night, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Sweeney Todd and A Few Good Men (LAMDA).
Television includes The Honourable Woman and Mr Selfridge.
EVE LEIGH
PLAYWRIGHT
Trained on the Royal Court Theatre Young Writers’ Programme and Studio Group, and the National Theatre Directors’ Course. Short plays include Enough (Birmingham REP), White Tuesday and Branches So Big They Block Out The Sun (Arcola Theatre), Wall (Festival of the North East) and You’re the Kind of Girl (Pleasance Edinburgh). She adapted The Dybbuk (King’s Head Theatre), and was also dramaturg for Numbers (Belarus Free Theatre) and How To Win Against History (Ovalhouse). Theatre as Director includes Circles and Chris and Me (Old Red Lion Theatre), Well (Trafalgar Studios and Apollo Theatre) and The Dybbuk (King’s Head Theatre). Eve is Creative Director of the All Change Festival at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and an Associate Artist of Firehouse Creative Productions.
TOM MANSFIELD
DIRECTOR
Trained on the MFA in Theatre Directing at Birkbeck, University of London, and at Birmingham University.
Theatre includes The Situation Room (Hull Truck, Shoreditch Town Hall and UK Tour), Birmingham From Above, The Engineers’ Lunch, Enough, Julius Caesar and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Young REP at Birmingham REP), Wall (Festival of the North-East), True Colours (Northern Stage at St Stephen’s), The Falling Sickness (Theatre in the Mill), 21 Writers (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Nightingale and the Rose (Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre), Oh Well Never Mind Bye (Union Theatre), Water Sculptures (Theatre503, Union Theatre and English Theatre of Bruges) and Meat (Smirnoff Underbelly). Assistant Direction includes Yerma, directed by Roísín McBrinn, A Christmas Carol, directed by Nikolai Foster, and As You Like It, directed by Ian Brown (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Purgatorio (Arcola Theatre), La Voix Humaine, Dido and Aeneas, Cautionary Tales (Opera North) and L’occasione fa il ladro (Royal Academy Opera).
Tom is Artistic Director of Upstart and a founding director of Oscar Mike.
PETRA HJORTSBERG
DESIGNER
Theatre includes Free Fall for which she was nominated for an OffWestEnd Award for Best Set Design, Freak (Theatre503 and Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh), Occupied for which she was nominated for an OffWestEnd Award for Best Set Design (Theatre503), Companion Piece