Olney Theatre Center Announces Neville's Island
Olney Theatre Center announces the upcoming production of Tim Firth's Neville's Island. This "comedy in thick fog" will play on the Mainstage April 4 - 28, 2013.
Nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy, Neville's Island follows four out-of-condition, middle-aged businessmen who are sent off on a team-building exercise in England's Lake District and succeed in being the first people ever to get shipwrecked inland in a tiny island. As night falls, they find their corporate know-how leaves them ill-equipped for survival-from both the elements and each other. Neville's Island: where "The Office" meets "Survivor."
"Neville's Island is a riotously funny play with a huge heart," says director Jason King Jones. "The comedy of the play is a richly encrusted surface filled with surprises, but what makes this play exceptional is when you crack open that surface, you find there's so much more to the story."
Playwright Tim Firth is no stranger to comedy with a heart: he wrote the screenplay for the movie Calendar Girls starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. His screenplay for the movie Kinky Boots was recently turned into a musical featuring the music of Grammy Award-winner Cyndi Lauper is set to open next month on Broadway.
The production includes Helen Hayes Nominated actor Michael Russotto (Woolly Mammoth's A Bright New Boise) as Neville, Bolton Marsh (The Kennedy Center's Sheer Madness) as Roy, Michael Glenn (Arena Stage's Good People) as Gordon and Todd Scofield (The Kennedy Center's Mister Roberts) as Angus.
"With the immensely talented Jason King Jones at the helm, and an extraordinary team of area veterans on stage, Neville's Island is going to prove a giddy delight for our audiences," says Artistic Director Jason Loewith.