5 September 2015 - 21 November 2015

2015-09-05:00-00:00
London UK WC2H 0DA Charing Cross Road

Photograph 51

by Anna Ziegler
Noël Coward Theatre
Cast includes: Nicole Kidman

“The instant I saw the photograph my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race”

Does Rosalind Franklin know how precious her photograph is? In the race to unlock the secret of life it could be the one to hold the key. With rival scientists looking everywhere for the answer, who will be first to see it and more importantly, understand it? Anna Ziegler’s extraordinary play looks at the woman who cracked DNA and asks what is sacrificed in the pursuit of science, love and a place in history.

Nicole Kidman made her much anticipated return to the London stage in the role of Rosalind Franklin, the woman who discovered the secret to Life, in the UK première of Anna Ziegler’s award-winning play.

Photograph 51 5 September 2015 - 21 November 2015

Nicole Kidman

Rosalind Franklin

Her theatre work includes: The Blue Room (Donmar Warehouse and Cort Theatre, Broadway – Evening Standard Award, Olivier Award nomination) and Steel Magnolias (Seymour Centre, Sydney, Australia – Best Newcomer Award).

Her television work includes: Hemingway & Gellhorn (Emmy nomination, Golden Globe nomination) and the upcoming Big Little Lies.

Her extensive film work includes: To Die For (Golden Globe for Best Actress), Moulin Rouge! (Academy Award nomination, Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical), The Others (Golden Globe nomination, Saturn Award), The Hours (Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe for Best Actress and Berlin Silver Bear), Cold Mountain, Birth (Golden Globe nomination), Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, Rabbit Hole (Golden Globe for Best Actress, Academy Award nomination), The Paperboy (Golden Globe nomination, SAG Award nomination) and Paddington. Upcoming films include Genius, Secret in Their Eyes and Lion.

Stephen Campbell Moore

Maurice Wilkins

Theatre includes: Chimerica (Almeida and Harold Pinter Theatre), Berenice (Donmar Warehouse), Clybourne Park (Royal Court and Wyndham’s), All My Sons (Apollo Theatre), The History Boys (NT and Broadway), Much Ado About Nothing and Antony and Cleopatra (RSC), Death of a Salesman (Compass Theatre Company), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Albery), Richard II and Coriolanus (Almeida, Gainsborough Studio) and The Changeling (Salisbury Playhouse).

Film includes: The Lady in the Van, The Ones Below, Burnt, Moonwalkers, Man Up, Complicit, Johnny English Reborn, Season of the Witch, A Short Stay in Switzerland, Sea Wolf, The Children, The Bank Job, Amazing Grace, The History Boys, A Good Woman and Bright Young Things.

Television includes: Stag, The Wrong Mans series 1 and 2, The Go Between, Our Zoo, Hunted, Just Henry, Titanic, Sleepyhead, Pulse, Ben Hur, Larkrise to Candleford, Ashes to Ashes, Rough Crossings, Hustle, Wallis and Edward, He Knew He Was Right and Byron.

Will Attenborough

James Watson

Theatre includes: Another Country (Chichester Festival Theatre and Trafalgar Studios) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Cambridge Arts Theatre).

Television includes: War and Peace, Midwinter of the Spirit, Apocalypse Slough, Home Fires, Father Brown, In the Flesh, Utopia and The Hollow Crown: Henry IV Parts 1 & 2.

Edward Bennett

Francis Crick

Theatre includes: Orson’s Shadow (Southwark Playhouse), The Rehearsal and Hay Fever (Chichester Festival Theatre), Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet (RSC), Things We Do For Love, School for Scandal, In the Next Room, Pygmalion, Little Nell, Habeas Corpus and Measure for Measure (Theatre Royal Bath), One Man, Two Guvnors (NT tour), Lovesong (Frantic Assembly), 3 Farces, Nan, Skin Game, Diana of Dobsons (Orange Tree Theatre), Plenty (Crucible Theatre Sheffield), The Tempest and As You Like It (BAM/tour/Old Vic), Othello (Donmar Warehouse), School for Scandal and Invention of Love (Salisbury Playhouse) and The Importance of Being Ernest (York Theatre Royal).

Film includes: Skyfall, War Horse, Hamlet and Friends Just United.

Television includes: Miranda, The Scum Also Rises, Above Suspicion, Doctors, After You’ve Gone and Silent Witness.

Patrick Kennedy

Don Caspar

Theatre includes: No Quarter (Royal Court), The Glass Menagerie (Shared Experience tour), Measure for Measure (Plymouth Theatre Royal and tour), Thérèse Raquin (NT), Everything is Illuminated (Hampstead Theatre), Suddenly Last Summer (Sheffield Lyceum and The Albery), A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Bristol Old Vic) and Maps of Desire (Southwark Playhouse).

Film includes: London Has Fallen, Mr Holmes, November Man, War Horse, The Sophisticated Neanderthal Interview, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Ourhouse, The Last Station, Me and Orson Welles, Atonement, In Transit, A Good Year, Munich, The Tulse Luper Suitcases and Nine Lives.

Television includes: Churchill’s Secret, The Money, Downton Abbey, Murder on the Home Front, Boardwalk Empire, Peep Show series 8, Parade’s End, Black Mirror: The National Anthem, Married, Single, Other, The 39 Steps, Consuming Passions, Einstein and Eddington, The Somme, Bleak House, Inspector Linley Mysteries and Cambridge Spies.

Joshua Silver

Ray Gosling

Training: Joshua trained at RADA.

Theatre includes: Wolf Hall Parts I & II (West End and Broadway), A Tale of Two Cities (Royal and Derngate), Blue Stockings and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe), Trelawny of the Wells (Donmar Warehouse) and Sunburst (Defibrillator).

Lorna Stuart

Understudy Rosalind Franklin

Theatre includes: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Michael Grandage Company), Henry IV Parts I & II, Bedlam (Shakespeare’s Globe), Mixed Up North and Andersen’s English (Out of Joint), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (J2 Productions) and Laodameia (The Merlin Theatre, Budapest).

Film includes: Art Is…

Television includes: The Borgias.

Patrick Walshe McBride

Understudy James Watson and Ray Gosling

Theatre includes: Almost, Maine (Park Theatre), The Picture of John Gray (Old Red Lion), The Winter’s Tale (Crucible Theatre Sheffield), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (European tour), Hostage, Romeo and Juliet (ADC Theatre, Cambridge) and Totally Over You (Tricycle Theatre).

Film includes: Tinfoil and Jackboots.

Television includes: Lewis.

Radio includes: Peer Gynt.

William Troughton

Understudy Maurice Wilkins, Francis Crick and Don Caspar

Theatre includes: Private Peaceful (Tobacco Factory), Going Bush (The Bush), The Dead Dogs (The Print Room), Happy New (Trafalgar Studios), The Lady Killers (West End and No.1 tour) and The Woman in Black (West End).

Television includes: George Gently, Silk, Crimson Field and Doctors.

Radio includes: The Archers.

Anna Ziegler

Author

Anna Ziegler’s plays include The Last Match (upcoming at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, CA and City Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA), Boy (upcoming at Keen Company/Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City), A Delicate Ship (The Playwrights Realm, August-September, 2015 at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, New York City; Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), Another Way Home (upcoming in Washington DC at Theater J; Magic Theatre, San Francisco, CA), Dov and Ali (Theatre503; The Playwrights Realm), The Minotaur (Rorschach Theatre; Synchronicity Theatre) and BFF (WET Productions at the DR2 Theatre, New York City). She has been commissioned by The Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Virginia Stage Company and New Georges. Her plays have been developed at The Sundance Theatre Lab, The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York Stage and Film, The Araca Group, Old Vic New Voices, and Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab, among others.

Anna is a graduate of Yale College and holds an MA in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Michael Grandage

Director

Michael is Artistic Director of the Michael Grandage Company in London. He was Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse (2002-12) and Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres (2000-05).

For MGC: Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Peter and Alice and Privates on Parade as part of the season at the Noël Coward Theatre, Dawn French: 30 Million Minutes (national tour and West End run at the Vaudeville Theatre later this year) and the forthcoming feature film Genius.

At the Donmar: Richard II, Luise Miller, King Lear, Red (also Broadway and LA), Hamlet (also Elsinore and New York), Ivanov, Twelfth Night, The Chalk Garden, Don Juan in Soho, Frost/Nixon (also Gielgud, New York and USA Tour), Othello, The Wild Duck, Guys and Dolls, Grand Hotel, After Miss Julie, Caligula, Merrily We Roll Along and Passion Play.

At Sheffield: he directed numerous productions including Don Carlos, which also transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in London.

Opera includes: The Marriage of Figaro and Billy Budd (Glyndebourne), Don Giovanni (Metropolitan Opera) and Madame Butterfly (Houston).

Awards include: Tony, Olivier, Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle, TMA, South Bank and Drama Desk Awards. He has also been awarded Honorary Doctorates by both Sheffield University and Sheffield Hallam University and is President of Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. He was appointed CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2011. His book, A Decade at the Donmar, was published in 2012 by Constable and Robinson.

Christopher Oram

Set & Costume Designer

Theatre includes: Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Cripple of Inishmaan (also NYC), Peter and Alice and Privates on Parade (MGC/West End), Macbeth (Manchester International Festival & Armoury NYC), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Rogers/NYC), Company (Sheffield Crucible), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, A Streetcar Named Desire, Othello, Grand Hotel, World Music, Red, King Lear, Passion, Parade and Frost/Nixon (Donmar Warehouse), Hamlet, Madame de Sade, Twelfth Night and Ivanov (Donmar/Wyndham’s), Man and Superman, Summerfolk, Danton’s Death, Stuff Happens, Power and The Marriage Play/Finding the Sun (NT), Backbeat (Glasgow Citizens), Evita (Adelphi & NYC), Guys and Dolls (Piccadilly), King Lear/The Seagull (RSC/world tour), Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies (RSC Stratford/London/NYC) and A Damsel in Distress (Chichester). Recipient of the Tony, Olivier, Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle, Garland, Falstaff and Ovation awards for his work in both the UK and the USA.

Neil Austin

Lighting Designer

Theatre includes: Bend it Like Beckham, Shakespeare in Love, Henry V, Betty Blue Eyes, The Children’s Hour, Dealer’s Choice, No Man’s Land and A Life in the Theatre (West End), Our Country’s Good, 3 Days in the Country, Rules for Living, Dara, The Silver Tassie, Liolà, The Children of the Sun, Port, She Stoops to Conquer, The Cherry Orchard, Women Beware Women, The White Guard, London Assurance (NT), Henry IV, The Night Alive, The Weir, Julius Caesar, Spelling Bee, King Lear, Passion, The Prince of Homburg, Red, Life is a Dream, A Streetcar Named Desire, Hamlet, Madame de Sade, Twelfth Night, Piaf, Parade, John Gabriel Borkman, Don Juan in Soho, The Cryptogram, Frost/Nixon, The Wild Duck, The Cosmonaut’s Last Message..., Pirandello’s Henry IV, World Music, After Miss Julie, Caligula (Donmar Warehouse), Birdland, The Faith Machine, Tusk Tusk, Flesh Wound, Trust (Royal Court), Josephine and I (Bush), Kenneth Branagh’s Macbeth (Manchester International Festival and New York), A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Evita, Red, Hamlet, The Seafarer and Frost/Nixon (Broadway). He is the recipient of the 2011 Laurence Olivier Award for The White Guard at the National Theatre and the 2010 Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Red at the Golden Theatre on Broadway.

Adam Cork

Composer

Adam Cork has written mainly for the stage, incorporating sound design within his work to create integrated music and sound scores embracing instrumental music, electronic music and song for many celebrated productions. Adam’s musical London Road, co-written with Alecky Blythe, won the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical in 2011. He also received an Olivier Award in 2011 for King Lear (Donmar Warehouse), the Evening Standard ‘Best Design’ Award 2011 for Anna Christie and King Lear (Donmar), and a Tony Award in 2010 for his music and sound score for Red (Donmar/Broadway). In 2010 Adam received a Tony Award nomination for ‘Best Score’ (Music and Lyrics) for Enron (Headlong/West End/Broadway). Also on Broadway, his sound design for Macbeth (2008) was nominated for a Tony Award and his music for Frost/Nixon (2007) was nominated for a Drama Desk Award.

Other theatre includes: Phèdre (NT), Henry V, Peter and Alice (MGC/Noël Coward), The Tempest (RSC), Richard II, Othello, The Chalk Garden, Creditors, The Wild Duck, Caligula (Donmar Warehouse), Hamlet (also Broadway), Ivanov (Donmar/Wyndham’s), No Man’s Land (Duke of York’s), Don Carlos (Gielgud/Sheffield), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The Late Henry Moss (Almeida), Faustus and Paradise Lost (Headlong).

Screen work includes: London Road, Genius, The Hollow Crown: Richard II, Macbeth and Frances Tuesday.

Radio scores include: The Luneberg Variation and The Colonel-Bird.

Anne McNulty CDG

Casting Director

Anne was Casting Director at the Donmar Warehouse for 20 years, where she cast over 100 productions.

Theatre includes: Bakkhai, Carmen Disruption (Almeida Theatre), Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (Chichester Festival Theatre), Outside Mullingar (Bath Ustinov Studio), Good People (Hampstead and Noël Coward Theatre), Macbeth (Manchester International Festival and New York Armory), The Cripple of Inishmaan (also Cort Theatre, NY), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry V (Michael Grandage Company), Betrayal: UK casting (Ethel Barrymore Theatre, NY), Venice Preserved (Spectator’s Guild), Tartuffe, Of Mice and Men (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), Brian Friel season: Afterplay, Translations and Wonderful Tennessee (Sheffield Crucible).

Christine Blundell

Hair & Wigs Designer

Christine first got involved in hair and make-up when styling bands in the late ‘70s and working in a salon in Kensington Market. She went on to open her own hairdressing salon and then embarked on an intensive three month make-up course. After completing the course, Christine worked on The Phantom of the Opera doing prosthetics and went on to work for LWT. Her first feature with Mike Leigh was Life is Sweet, which marked the beginning of a long and successful working relationship that has spanned more than 20 years and produced 11 features including Secrets and Lies, Topsy Turvy, Vera Drake, Happy-Go-Lucky, Another Year and, most recently, Mr Turner, for which Christine received a BAFTA nomination. For Topsy Turvy Christine won both an Academy Award and a BAFTA Film Award and in 2004 received BAFTA nominations for both Vera Drake and Finding Neverland.

Christine’s other varied film credits include: The Full Monty, Closer, The Constant Gardener, Casino Royale, Eastern Promises, London Boulevard, Sherlock Holmes, Gambit, Trance, About Time, The Fifth Estate and Kingsman: The Secret Service. More recently, Christine has worked on the soon-to-be-released Legend, directed by Brian Helgeland and starring Tom Hardy, and Genius, directed by Michael Grandage and starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth.

Christine has just completed work on Knights of the Round Table: King Arthur for director Guy Ritchie and is currently working on Wonder Woman.

Sandra Frieze

Dialect Coach to Ms Kidman

Sandra Frieze has been working as a dialogue and voice coach in Film for the past 20 years and began her professional collaboration with Nicole Kidman 15 years ago on The Others. Sandra has also worked with Ms Kidman on The Hours, His Dark Materials: The Golden CompassAustraliaBefore I Go to Sleep and most recently on Paddington.

Other film credits include: Ever AfterHarry Potter and the Philosopher’s StoneHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Now is Good, War Horse, Hanna, Closed Circuit, Ginger and Rosa, Maleficent, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Mr Holmes and The Huntsman. Sandra has also been called upon for her language skills (French and Spanish) to work with foreign actors on other films including Agora, Wrath of the Titans and on the James Bond films The World is Not Enough and Casino Royale.

Theatre credits include: Cyrano de Bergerac with Clémence Poésy (Broadway).

Zabarjad Salam

Voice Coach

Theatre includes: The Mentalists (OVP), Bend it Like Beckham (Sonia Friedman Productions), Harvey (Birmingham Rep/Theatre Royal Haymarket), My Night With Reg (Donmar Warehouse), Khandaan (Birmingham Rep/Royal Court), Speed the Plow, Hay Fever, Saturday Night Fever, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Theatre Royal Bath), Other Desert Cities (Old Vic), We Are Proud to Present (Bush), McQueen, Urinetown (Julian Stoneham Associates), Once a Catholic (Tricycle), Fireworks, Liberian Girl, The Djinns of Eidgah, Death Tax, NSFW (Royal Court), The Island, Sizwe Bansi is Dead (Young Vic), The Commitments, Let It Be (West End), Roaring Girl, The Empress, Julius Caesar, The Winter’s Tale, Matilda, Much Ado About Nothing (RSC), Goodnight Mr Tom (Chichester Festival), Behind the Beautiful Forevers, The Veil, 13, The Comedy of Errors, The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, Travelling Light, Collaborators, The Last of the Hausmans, Timon of Athens, This House (NT), The Emperor Self (Arcola) and Zaide (Sadler’s Wells/UK tour).

Film includes: Tulip Fever and The Jungle Book.

Television includes: Indian Summers, Cucumber/Banana, Cilla, Being Eileen and Blandings.

Anna Josephs

Costume Supervisor

Theatre includes: Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Strange Interlude, Antigone, Moon On a Rainbow Shawl (NT), Fathers and Sons, The Night Alive, Lower Ninth, Les Parents Terribles (Donmar Warehouse), The Pride, Macbeth (Jamie Lloyd Season Trafalgar Studios), Quartett (Linbury Theatre), The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic) and Batman World Arena Tour.

Musicals include: Dirty Dancing (West End and UK tour, Hamburg, Berlin, Oberhausen, South African tour, Milan, and Paris), From Here to Eternity (West End), The Bodyguard (West End and UK tour) and Hairspray (West End and UK tour).

Photograph 51
Photograph 51

Reviews and Marketing

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"A triumph"
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"Michael Grandage’s superb production"
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"A commanding, intelligent performance"
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"Michael Grandage’s fluent direction and Nicole Kidman’s stellar control"
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"Nicole Kidman give a finely poised performance"
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"A beautiful, tender and surprising new play that elevates the West End"
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"Michael Grandage’s powerful, captivating production"
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"Kidman is superb. This is pure theatrical DNA"
"Michael Grandage’s compelling production"
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"Nicole Kidman’s return to the West End has been worth the wait"
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"Kidman commands the stage… she is absolutely captivating"
West End Frame
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"Powerful"
Sunday Express
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"Kidman… the undisputed star"
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Awards

Nicole Kidman Best Actress - WhatsOnStage Awards

Nicole Kidman Best Actress - Evening Standard Awards

Behind the Scenes

For more information including behind the scenes visit MGCfutures.


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