The first major stage production of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, based on the best-selling novel by Louis de Bernières will tour the UK in 2019, 25 years after the book was first published. The production will be directed by Olivier and Tony Award nominee Melly Still and adapted by Evening Standard Award winner and Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominee Rona Munro. Casting to be announced.
The play will preview at Leicester Curve from 13-20 April 2019 and will play Rose Theatre Kingston from 23 April-12 May (the national press night will be held on 25 April at the Rose Theatre).
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is an epic love story set on the Greek island of Cephalonia. It follows the lives of Dr Iannis, his beautiful, strong-willed daughter Pelagia and the Italian Captain Antonio Corelli, during the Italian and German occupation of the island in World War II. For the novel, Louis de Bernières won the 1995 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize – Overall Winner for Best Book, the 1995 Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and the 1994 Sunday Express Book of the Year. In 2001, the novel was adapted into a film starring Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz.
Other dates already confirmed are: Theatre Royal Bath from 14-18 May, Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 29 May-15 June, King’s Theatre Edinburgh from 18-22 June and Glasgow Theatre Royal from 25-29 June.
The production will have set and costume designs by Mayou Trikerioti, lighting design by Malcolm Rippeth, sound design by Jon Nicholls, projection design by Dom Baker for OD Vision and music composed by Harry Blake. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is produced by Neil Laidlaw, Rose Theatre Kingston and Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
Bios
Rona Munro has written extensively for stage, radio, film and television and most recently adapted Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton for a new production at The Bridge Theatre, directed by Richard Eyre and starring Laura Linney. Munro received huge critical acclaim for The James Plays (National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival and National Theatre). Rona’s TV and film work includes Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach and starring Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving, Aimee and Jaguar, which won a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and also received a Golden Globe nomination, and the BAFTA-nominated Bumping the Odds for the BBC. Munro is currently working on the adaptation of Ian Rankin’s Rebus: Long Shadows for Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
Melly Still is currently directing the UK tour of The Lovely Bones. Still received huge critical acclaim for having directed and co-designed Coram Boy (National Theatre & Broadway) and for which she was a Tony Award nominee for Best Director, Best Set Design and Best Costume Design, and an Olivier Award nominee for Best Director and Best Design. Other theatre credits for direction include April De Angelis’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s tetralogy of Neapolitan novels, My Brilliant Friend (Rose Theatre Kingston), Cymbeline (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Cunning Little Vixen (Glyndebourne Opera Festival), Warhorse Proms (Royal Albert Hall) and Tiger Bay The Musical (Wales Millennium Centre). Still will direct the upcoming UK and Ireland tour and European stage premiere of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d.
