Grace Molony, who The Stage Debut Awards Best Actress Award for The Country Girls at Chichester Festival, takes the title role in the world premiere of The Glass Piano, Alix Sobler’s new play based on the bizarre but true story of Princess Alexandra of Bavaria who believed she had swallowed the titular instrument. Full cast is now announced. Time to get booking!
The Glass Piano, written by award-winning playwright Alix Sobler and directed by Olivier-nominated Max Key, runs at the Print Room at the Coronet, in Notting Hill, west London, from 26 April to 25 May 2019, with a press night on 30 April and a post-show Q&A chaired by Mates co-founder Terri Paddock on Wednesday 8 May.
As Alexandra tiptoes carefully through the palace corridors, turning sideways to pass through doorways, terrified that at the slightest disturbance the piano would shatter inside her, her father, King Ludwig I, can do nothing to help – until a young man comes to the palace.
Princess Alexandra is played by Stage Debut Award winner Grace Molony. She’s joined in the cast by Timothy Walker as Ludwig, Olivier Award winner Suzan Sylvester as nurse Galestina and Laurence Ubong Williams as Lucien.
The Glass Piano runs from 26 April to 25 May 2019
The Glass Piano is directed by Max Key, whose many productions include the premiere of Neil McPherson‘s It Is Easy To Be Dead, which transferred from the Finborough Theatre to the West End’s Trafalgar Studios and was nominated for a 2017 Olivier Award.
The production features music composed by Gabriel Prokofiev, the grandson of Sergei Prokofiev, which will be played onstage by pianist Elizabeth Rossiter. Set and lighting design is by Declan Randell, costume is designed by Deborah Andrews and sound is designed by Emma Laxton.
Bios
Alix Sobler (author) is a writer from New York whose play The Great Divide ran at Finborough Theatre to great acclaim in 2016. Her plays have won the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition and the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition, and have been finalists for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Henley Rose Playwriting Competition and the Jane Chambers Award, among others. She has had work read or produced at the Roundabout Theater Company (New York, NY), South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA), The Alliance Theater (Atlanta, GA), The Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), The Segal Centre (Montreal, QC), The Stratford Festival (Stratford, ON), and many other theaters across North America. This spring, Alix will be in Chicago working on Certain Woman of an Age, a new solo show she is developing for and with mental health advocate, water activist, and Canadian icon, Margaret Trudeau. BA: Brown University, MFA: Columbia University.
Author Alix Sobler
Max Key (director) was nominated for an Olivier Award and Off West End Theatre Award for It Is Easy To Be Dead (Trafalgar Studios). He trained on the National Theatre Directors’ Course and works in theatre, film and opera. Directing credits include: It Is Easy To Be Dead (Trafalgar Studios / Finborough Theatre), Year 10 (Finborough Theatre – Time Out Critics’ Choice Award), Up the Royal Borough (Lyric Hammersmith), Mariana Pineda (Arcola Theatre), Wilde Tales (Southwark Playhouse), The Turn of the Screw, The Rape of Lucretia (Arcola Theatre). Max has taught and directed over 50 productions at leading drama schools including Guildhall, LAMDA, Drama Centre and Mountview. Other credits include: Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, The Way of the World, Summerfolk, The Seagull, Clybourne Park, August Osage County, Scenes from the Big Picture, Jerusalem and The Knowledge. Assistant Director credits include: The Voysey Inheritance (National Theatre), The Flying Dutchman (Royal Opera House), Fram (National Theatre), Treasure Island (Royal Haymarket) and La Bohème (Royal Albert Hall). Max was an Associate Director on As Good A Time As Any by Peter Gill at The Coronet Theatre. Max’s short film Preservation, starring Saskia Reeves, was presented at Palm Springs International Film Festival & BAFTA.
Grace Molony (Alexandra) trained at LAMDA and won Best Actress at The Stage Debut Awards 2017 for her role Kate in The Country Girls directed by Lisa Blair (Chichester Festival Theatre). Other theatre credits include Emma in The Watsons directed by Samuel West (Chichester Festival Theatre), Lady Windermere in Lady Windermere’s Fan directed by Kathy Burke (Vaudeville Theatre). Film credits include Artemis Fowl (Disney), Mary Queen of Scots (Focus Features), and short films Bone China and The Law of Moments. TV credits include Doctors (BBC).
Suzan Sylvester (Galistina) has a long career. Her theatre credits include: Broken Glass (Tricycle Theatre/ Vaudeville); The Price, Macbeth, The Winslow Boy (Octagon Theatre); 3 Sisters on Hope Street (Liverpool Everyman and Hampstead Theatre); Othello (Salisbury Playhouse); Heartbreak House (Watford Palace); Crooked, Card boys, Shang-a-Lang, Little Baby Nothing (Bush Theatre); Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune (Sound Theatre); Tabloid Caligula (Arcola and 59th St.NYC); Cleansed, Black Milk, Terrorism (Royal Court); The Real Thing (UK tour); The Secret Rapture, Three Sisters (Chichester); Betrayal (Northcott); Love’s Labour’s Lost (Royal Exchange); The House of Bernada Alba (Theatr Clwyd); All My Sons, The Glass Menagerie, Romeo and Juliet, An Enemy of the People (Young Vic); As You Like It, The Seagull, A Government Inspector (Crucible Sheffield); Life is a Dream (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Pericles, All’s Well That Ends Well (RSC); ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, A Small Family Business, A View from the Bridge (National Theatre/Aldwych), Best Newcomer Laurence Olivier Award. TV includes: Silent Witness, A Touch of Frost, Pie in the Sky, Kingdom, Misterioso, Holby City, Casualty, Wycliffe, EastEnders, The Quatermass Experiment, The Bill, London’s Burning, Rides, Film includes: Streets of Yesterday, Bilingual. Radio includes: Pentecost, The Rover, The Last Dare, Macbeth.
Timothy Walker (Ludwig I) has worked with the RSC, The Old Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe, The Almeida, Cheek by Jowl, on Broadway, the West End and internationally in numerous award-winning and critically acclaimed productions. A wide range of leading roles include Hamlet, Richard 11, Prospero, Brutus, Malvolio, Caliban, Sydney Carton, Trigorin, Magwitch & Warwick in The Henry V1 play cycle. He has worked with many eminent directors including Steven Berkoff, Declan Donnellan, Nicholas Hytner, Richard Jones, Karel Reisz, Trevor Nunn & Matthew Warchus. Recent TV series and films include: Black Earth Rising (BBC2/Netflix) The Last Kingdom (BBC2), One Red Nose Day and A Wedding/Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bel Ami, Hannibal Rising. Theatre credits as a director include: Cosi Fan Tutte (English Touring Opera), Edward 11 (Shakespeare’s Globe), Ritual in Blood (World Premiere/Nottingham Playhouse), The Two Character Play (Cheek by Jowl) and Swanwhite (Gate Theatre). Timothy co-wrote the musical Stuck on a Sunday (with Marc Teitler/ Composer & Jason Morell/ Writer) which was awarded development funding from the BFI for a feature-length animated musical screenplay and The Royal Opera House for the stage.
Laurence Ubone Williams (Lucien) trained at Oxford School of Drama. Theatre credits include The Watsons (Chichester Festival Theatre), Stop and Search, Br’er Cotton, Top Trumps (Theatre 503), Jumpy (Theatr Clwyd), The Winter’s Tale (Orange Tree) How to Find Us and Swordy (Soho Theatre). TV credits include Back (Talk/Channel 4), Humans (Channel 4) and Doctors (BBC). Film credits include Gateway (Pic Du Jour) and My Dinner with Herve (HBO).
Elizabeth Rossiter (pianist) is a prize-winning concert pianist, song accompanist, chamber musician and répétiteur. She has given recitals at most of the UK’s major concert halls, broadcast regularly on national radio and television, and performed widely throughout Europe. She has a busy and varied career, and was recently music director and pianist for the 2017 Olivier Award-nominated play, It Is Easy To Be Dead, which received critical acclaim and a transfer to London’s West End. Elizabeth studied the piano at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and completed her training at the National Opera Studio.
Terri Paddock chairs a post-show Q&A at The Glass Piano on 8 May 2019
