Hari Dhillon, star of DISGRACED, at the Josephine & I Press Night
TRANSFERRING TO NEW YORK THIS SPRING
A Bush Theatre Production
Josephine Baker: jazz sensation, political activist and international icon
From the ragtime rhythms of St Louis and the intoxicating sounds of 1920s Paris, to present day London, Josephine and I intertwines the story of a modern day girl with that of one of the greatest, yet forgotten, stars of the 20th century.
Olivier nominated Cush Jumbo stars in her debut play, with live music and dance bringing to life the contemporary legacy of “…the most sensational woman anyone ever saw” (Hemingway). The award-winning Phyllida Lloyd directs (The Iron Lady, Mamma Mia!)
This delightful summer show will be performed cabaret style. Make a night of it with food, drinks and music in our Café Bar and Garden.
UPDATE:
Josephine and I will be staged by the Public Theater, New York, at Joe’s Pub, from 27 February to 5 April 2015.
The show received its world premiere at the Bush Theatre in July 2013, where it played to public and critical acclaim, winning Cush Jumbo the Evening Standard Emerging Talent Award, and receiving an Olivier Award nomination.
Theatre includes: Private Lives (West End & Minerva Theatre, Chichester); Carousel (Opera North and Chatelet Paris); Sweeney Todd (Chichester Festival Theatre and West End; 2013 Oliver Award nomination for Best Costume Design); She Loves Me (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Last of the Duchess (Hampstead Theatre); ENRON (Chichester Festival Theatre, Royal Court, West End and Broadway); Mary Stuart (West End and Broadway, 2009 Tony award for best costume design); Oliver! (West End); The Cherry Orchard and A Winter’s Tale (set design, Brooklyn Academy of Music and Old Vic); Glengarry Glen Ross (West End); Macbeth (Chichester Festival Theatre, West End, Brooklyn Academy of Music and Broadway); Dying City (Lincoln Center); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (West End, Broadway & Australia); Gypsy (Broadway); Oklahoma! (National Theatre, West End and Broadway, 1996 Olivier award for set design); The Captain of Kopenick, Napoli Milionaria, Sweet Bird of Youth, John Gabriel Borkman, The Way of the World, La Grande Magia (1999 Olivier award for costume design), Rocket to the Moon, Twelfth Night, Othello, The Invention of Love, My Fair Lady (National Theatre and West End); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999 Olivier award for costume design), King Lear, The Tempest, Artists and Admirers, The Winter’s Tale, The Alchemist, The Virtuoso, Troilus and Cressida, Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, Secret Garden, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (RSC); Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night (set design, Brooklyn Academy of Music; Obie award); A Doll’s House, Small Change, To The Green Fields Beyond, Nine and Assassins (Donmar Warehouse); Posh (also West End), Rhinoceros, The Arsonist (Royal Court Theatre); Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Marianne Dreams, The Novice, The Rehearsal (Almeida Theatre); Hedda Gabler (Bath Theatre Royal).
Opera includes: Alcina (Vienna State Opera); Peter Grimes, Gloriana, La bohème, Yollande, L’étoile (Opera North); The Magic Flute (Glyndebourne); The Carmelites (ENO and WNO); Macbeth (Royal Opera House); Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); The Makropulos Case (set design, Metropolitan Opera NY); Manon Lescaut (Opera de Paris, Bastille and De Vlaamse Opera); and Tosca (De Vlaamse Opera, Antwerp).
Ballet and dance credits include: The Nutcracker (The Royal Danish Ballet); Masquerades, Les Rendez-vous, Dance Variations (The Royal Ballet) and Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker! (Sadler’s Wells and UK tour).
Josephine and I is Cush Jumbo’s debut play. As an actress, Cush Jumbo’s theatre work includes Julius Caesar (Donmar Warehouse), She Stoops to Conquer (National Theatre), J’ai Deux Amours (Etcetera Theatre), As You Like It – Ian Charleson Award, Pygmalion (Royal Exchange Manchester), An Argument About Sex (Traverse Theatre) and Liquid Gold (Almeida Theatre). For television, her credits include Vera, Getting On (series regular), Lip Service (series regular), Torchwood (series regular), and Harley Street (series regular); and for film, The Inbetweeners.
As musical director: The Girl I Left Behind Me (Brits Off Broadway 2013, 59E59 Theaters, New York), Feathers in the Snow, Victor / Victoria (Southwark Playhouse), J’ai Deux Amours (Etcetera Theatre), The Ring’s the Thing (Pheasantry) and Me and Juliet (Finborough). He is also a tutor and composer at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. His television composition credits include Mud, Sweat and Tractors, Shooting the War (BBC4) and El Alamein: A Solder’s Story (UKTV Yesterday). Concert music commissions include works for the BBC Elstree Concert Band, Fugata Quintet, soprano Sarah Gabriel and Spitalfields Festival. His guitar work Indian Summer is recorded by Antonis Hatzinikolaou for the NMC label. Joseph trained at New College Oxford and the Royal Academy of Music. www.josephatkins.co.uk
Recipient of the 2011 Olivier Award for The White Guard at the National Theatre and the 2010 Tony Award & Drama Desk Award for Red at the Golden Theatre, Broadway.
Designs include: Children of the Sun, The Captain of Köpenick, Port, The Doctor’s Dilemma; She Stoops to Conquer; The Cherry Orchard; Women Beware Women; London Assurance; England People Very Nice; The Observer; Oedipus; Her Naked Skin; Philistines; The Man of Mode; Thérèse Raquin (National Theatre); Julius Caesar, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; King Lear; Passion; Red (also Broadway and Los Angeles); A Streetcar Named Desire; Piaf; Parade; Frost/Nixon; The Wild Duck; After Miss Julie; Caligula (Donmar Warehouse); Hamlet; Madame de Sade; Twelfth Night (Donmar West End); The Sunshine Boys; South Downs/The Browning Version; Death and the Maiden; Betty Blue Eyes; The Children’s Hour; Dealer’s Choice; No Man’s Land (West End); The Faith Machine; Tusk Tusk; Flesh Wound; Trust (Royal Court); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Evita; Red; Hamlet; The Seafarer; Frost/Nixon (Broadway).
Dance includes: 24 Preludes; Rhapsody; As One (Royal Ballet); Cinderella (New Adventures); The Sleeping Beauty (English National Ballet); Pineapple Poll (Birmingham Royal Ballet).
Phyllida Lloyd directs. Her theatre work includes, for the Donmar, Julius Caesar, Mary Stuart (also West End and Broadway, South Bank Theatre Award), The Threepenny Opera and Boston Marriage; Six Degrees of Separation, Wild East (Royal Court), Pericles, Duchess of Malfi, What the Butler Saw, The Way of the World and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (National Theatre), The Virtuoso and Artists and Admirers (RSC) and MAMMA MIA! (London, New York and worldwide, also 2008 film). Her opera productions include La Bohème, Albert Herring, Gloriana, Carmen and Peter Grimes – Royal Philharmonic Society Award and a South Bank Show Award (Opera North), Macbeth (Opéra-Bastille, Royal Opera), The Carmelites (ENO, WNO), The Handmaid’s Tale (Royal Danish Opera, ENO), a staged Verdi Requiem and Wagner’s Ring Cycle (ENO) and an award-winning film of Gloriana (BBC2). Her most recent film was The Iron Lady reuniting her with Meryl Streep.
Most recent credits include The Amen Corner (National Theatre), Matilda The Musical (RSC, Cambridge Theatre and Shubert Theatre, New York – 2012 Oliver Award for Best Sound), The Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC), Steptoe and Son (Kneehigh Theatre/UK Tour), Loserville (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Garrick Theatre), Hedda Gabler (Old Vic), Wah Wah Girls (Sadlers Wells), Angus Thongs and Even More Snogging (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Batman Live (World Arena Tour), Me and My Girl (Sheffield), The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (Lyric Theatre), The Real Thing (Old Vic), The Norman Conquests (Old Vic and Broadway), Late Middle Classes (Donmar), La Bete (Comedy Theatre and Broadway), Lord Of The Rings (Theatre Royal Drury Lane and Toronto – 2007 Olivier Nomination Best Sound), Deathtrap (Noel Coward Theatre), Boeing Boeing (Comedy Theatre and Broadway – 2007 Tony Nomnation for Best Sound), Di and Viv and Rose (Hampstead Downstairs/Hampstead Main Stage). Bridge Project for BAM/Old Vic Theatre 2009, The Birds (Dublin), Closer To Heaven (Arts Theatre). For Kneehigh Theatre work includes Brief Encounter (London, WYP, UK and US Tours, Broadway and St Annes Warhouse NY – 2011 Tony Nomination for Best Sound), Don John (RSC and International Tour), The Red Shoes (International Tour), Wild Bride (International Tour), Midnights Pumpkin and all three years of Kneehigh’s Asylum Season.
