Hollywood starlet joins KU students at Rose

By Lucy Sambrook

 

She is used to acting alongside the likes of Daniel Craig and Gwyneth Paltrow, but this month Hollywood actress Joely Richardson will be rubbing shoulders with KU students.
 

Pupils from the university’s MA classical theatre course are to tread the boards with the star, as she plays the lead role in Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, this February at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. The eight students involved are: Ioana Dorofte, Dyveke Hoem, Kim Cormack, Adam Wollerton, Brandon Johnson, Robin Milton, Matt Wickey and Eleni Sauvageau.
   

Eleni Sauvageau, 22, said: “We have met Joely briefly. She is very friendly, very nice and very cool.”

The co-production will see the students take on roles, including shadowing and rehearsing with the professional actors as well as conducting research into the previous productions of the play.

Richardson, a Golden Globe winner, is best known for starring in the US television series Nip/Tuck and hit movie Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, alongside Daniel Craig.
 

Dyveke Hoem, 24, a Kingston student from Norway, will benefit from working closely with director Stephen Unwin to shed some light on the translations of the text.

Mr Unwin, who was recently named as the finest director of Ibsen in Britain by the Guardian, said: “It’s been really great working with our resident MA students on The Lady from the Sea.

“This is the 14th Rose Theatre Production and the university has been incredibly supportive from the beginning in bringing top quality drama to Kingston.”
 

MA classical theatre course tutor Adam Ainsworth said that the experience would help those students who have aspirations to move into the professional business by showing them ways to get a production on its feet and by giving them an insight into professional practice.

He said: “The real value comes with the informal conversations they will have – about the business and how to break into it.” Dame Judi Dench, Twilight’s Michael Sheen, Harry Potter’s Zoe Wanamaker, Penelope Keith and other famous faces have previously graced the stage.

The collaboration, showing at the Rose Theatre from February 23 to March 17, follows last year’s successful co-production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It.