By Mark Shenton
06 Jul 2009

Jane Lapotaire
photo by Sheila Burnett

Tony Award-winning actress Jane Lapotaire will return to the stage for the first time in a decade when she stars in the world premiere of Peter Gill's Another Door Closed beginning Aug. 4 at the Theatre Royal, Bath.

Opening night is scheduled for Aug. 11, and performances will continue to Aug. 29 only in the Ustinov Studio theatre. Another Door Closed is being presented as part of the ongoing annual Peter Hall Company season, now in its seventh season.

The production will be directed by its playwright. The cast also features June Watson and Sean Chapman.

In the play, two sisters remember their childhood home. As the memories flood back – some poignant, some happy, some disturbing – a vistor arrives. It appears that, many years before, the sisters' mother had been very kind to him.

Lapotaire, who will star as Woman Two, was last seen onstage in the Theatre Royal, Bath production of Terrence McNally's Master Class. On Broadway, she won the 1981 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing the title role in Pam Gems' Piaf, which transferred to New York's Plymouth Theatre after premiering in the U.K under the auspices of the RSC, first at its Stratford-upon-Avon studio The Other Place, then at London's Warehouse Theatre (now the Donmar Warehouse), before West End runs at the Aldwych, Wyndham's and Piccadilly Theatres. She has worked extensively for both the RSC and National Theatres, and other major West End roles include originating the role of Joy Davidman in the original production of Shadolwands in 1989. In 1996 she devised a one-woman show from all the Shakespearean heroines she has played, which toured to packed audiences in Stratford and in Missouri. In 2000 she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and subsequently wrote about her recovery in a book entitled "Time Out of Mind." This marks her first time onstage since then.

Watson, who appears as Woman One, was seen in the Donmar Warehouse's transfer of Mary Stuart to the West End's Apollo Theatre in 2005; last year, she was seen in Martin Sherman's Aristo at Chichester's Minerva Theatre. TV appearances include "Law and Order," "The Bill," "Holby Ciety," "Kavanagh QC" and "Ghost Hunter."

Sean Chapman, who appears as Man, has been seen onstage recently in A Prayer for My Daughter (Young Vic) and Enemies (Almeida). Film credits include "Hellraiser," "A Mighty Heart," "Joy Division" and "Football Factory."

Peter Gill, director and playwright and a former actor, has previously worked with Lapotaire on a Nottingham/Edinburgh production of As You Like It, in which she played Rosalind, which subsequently transferred to Riverside Studios in London, where it marked the official opening of the center that he was artistic director of from 1976 to 1980. He subsequently became an Asociate Director of the National Theatre from 1980 to 1997, where he set up the National Theatre Studio. His original plays have included several premieres for the Royal Court (including Small Change, revived at the National in 1983 and at the Donmar Warehouse in 2008), others at the National (including Cardiff East in 1997) and The York Realist (premiered under the auspices of English Touring Theatre in 2001, and seen in London at the Royal Court and subsequently transferring to the West End's Strand Theatre in March 2002). As a director, recent productions have included revivals of Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight at the Old Vic in 2006 and The Voysey Inheritance at the Ntaional in 2006, as well as productions of Look Back in Anger and The Importance of Being Earnest (both at Bath Theatre Royal, in 2006 and 2007 respectively).

To book tickets, contact the box office at 01225 448844 or visit www.theatreroyal.org.uk.