Cast announced for The Seagull

The first regional production of Anya Reiss’s exciting version of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull was always going to be a special event, but as the final production under the Library Theatre Company name, it promises to be particularly poignant.

The cast brings together actors familiar to our audience and a number of distinguished British stage actors performing with the company for the first time.

Graeme Hawley, familiar to TV viewers as Coronation Street serial-killer Jon Stape, but who is known to our theatre-goers from appearances in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Rock ‘n’ Roll, is Trigorin, the idealistic writer who has designs on budding actress Nina, played by Sophie Robinson. Sophie appeared in our production of The Heretic at The Lowry last autumn.

Trigorin’s lover, Arkadina, is played by Susie Trayling, who has a large number of National Theatre credits to her name, and locally, at Bolton Octagon. Arkadina’s insecure son, Konstantin, is played by Ben Allen, who has a number of appearances for Edward Hall’s Propeller company to his name.

One of the country’s leading stage actors, Peter Macqueen, returns to our stage for the first time since appearing as Fagin in Oliver Twist in Christmas 2005 to play landowner Sorin; Christopher Wright, currently on stage at The Lowry in our Wanted! Robin Hood, plays the estate doctor, Dorn; David Crellin, most recently seen in our award-winning site-specific production of Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, is Shamrayev, the estate manager.

Shamrayev is married to Polina, played by well-known Manchester actress Meriel Scholfield, who appeared alongside Graeme Hawley in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Their daughter Masha, one of life’s dreamers, is played by RADA graduate Victoria Lloyd; and finally Tom McHugh, another RADA graduate, takes the role of schoolteacher Medvedenko.

The Seagull runs from Fri 21 Feb – Sat 8 Mar 2014. You can book tickets online here or from The Lowry Box Office on 0843 208 6010.