Casey is not yet as bankable a name in U.K. musical theatre as the Janie Dees or Joanna Ridings of this world, but she recently made a mark as Mabel at the Watermill Theatre’s staging of Mack and Mabel. She is also a very experienced musical theatre performer, with shows such as Chicago to her name. Stephen Sondheim’s musical will run for three months and will be produced by David Babani (who has previously produced Sondheim’s Assassins). It will play Tuesdays to Saturdays from Nov. 14 through Feb. 18, 2006.
Evans is no stranger to Sondheim either. Having netted an Olivier Award nomination for Leonard Bernstein’s Candide at the National Theatre, he won the Best Actor in a Musical prize when he starred in Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along at the Donmar Warehouse. More recently, he appeared in yet another U.S. musical, Grand Hotel, also at the Donmar.
Sunday in the Park With George is loosely based on the life of the artist Georges Seurat, particularly his painting of “A Sunday Afternoon On the Island of La Grande Jatte.” The original cast at New York’s Booth Theatre in 1984 featured Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters (it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama). Five years later it debuted at London’s National Theatre, winning Olivier Awards for Best Musical and Best Actor (for Philip Quast).