Cast announced for Girl From The North Country
Girl from the North Country’s creative team today announced an incredible cast including Peter Kowitz, Christina O’Neill, Greg Stone, Blake Erickson, Elizabeth Hay, Grant Piro, James Smith and Callum Francis to join previously announced stars Lisa McCune, Zahra Newman, Terence Crawford, Helen Dallimore and Peter Carroll in the musical’s Australian premiere at Theatre Royal Sydney in January.
Grant Piro, Chemon Theys, Samantha Morley, Liam Wigney, Laurence Coy and Tony Cogin complete the impressive ensemble, with a band featuring Mark Harris, Tracy Lynch and Cameron Henderson under Musical Director Andrew Ross.
The critically acclaimed hit Girl from the North Country, written and directed by Conor McPherson and with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan, is set in 1930s Minnesota and centres on a community living on a knife-edge in the local guesthouse. Dylan’s songs are beautifully reimagined, with a live band on stage, and include Hurricane, I Want You, Slow Train Coming, Lay Lady Lay and Like A Rolling Stone.
Peter Kowitz (AFI winner and veteran of dozens of productions with STC, QTC, STCSA and Bell Shakespeare) stars as Nick Laine, the guesthouse’s owner who owes more money than he can ever repay, with Lisa McCune (multi Gold Logie winner and star of King And I, South Pacific) as his wife Elizabeth, whose mind is slowly deteriorating. Their daughter Marianne, pregnant to a man she won’t name, is played by stage and screen star Zahra Newman (The Book of Mormon, Wentworth, Wake In Fright) and their son Gene, played by James Smith (Jasper Jones, Euphoria and Hibernation for STCSA) is a drunk, would-be writer about to lose his girl, Katherine, played by Elizabeth Hay (the Helpmann Award winning Emil and the Detectives, Hibernation, The Gods of Strangers).
Other residents of the derelict house include a squabbling couple, with Mrs Burke played by Helpmann Award winners Helen Dallimore (Wicked [London’s West End], Legally Blonde, Muriel’s Wedding the Musical, Spring Awakening) and Greg Stone (Glengarry Glen Ross, Stuff Happens, Oklahoma!, Funny Girl) as her husband Mr Burke; their son Elias, played by Blake Erickson (); and Christina O’Neill (Calamity Jane, Vivid White and Avenue Q, for which she won a Helpmann Award) as the widowed Mrs Neilsen.
Regular visitors include Mr Perry, played by Peter Carroll (Helpmann Award winning star of over 100 productions, and recent recipient of an AM for services to the theatre), an elderly shoemaker whom Nick hopes might take Marianne as his wife; and morphine-addicted medic Dr Walker, played by stage and screen legend Terence Crawford (Romeo & Juliet, The Seagull, Hedda Gabler, 1984 and films Escape from Pretoria and The Babadook).
Late arrivals into this melting pot include Grant Piro (host of ABC TV’s Couch Potato, Hello, Dolly!, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Oklahoma) as a preacher selling bibles and Callum Francis as a boxer just out of prison, causing things start to spiral beyond the point of no return