It will begin performances Feb. 9 at the Print Room, a recently launched theatre set up by Bailey and producer and designer Anda Winters, prior to an official opening Feb. 14, for a run through March 5.
The play, described by the playwright as "a ghost play," is a dark and sinister thriller. Following the death of their cruel and tyrannical father, Annabel (Susan Wooldridge) returns to the family home to be reunited with her sister, Miriam (Sarah Woodward). Their father’s former nurse, Alice (Mossie Smith), accuses Miriam of murdering her father, and attempts to blackmail the sisters. As the sisters deal with Alice’s threats, they find themselves haunted by the ghosts of their past.
Wooldridge came to fame as Daphne Manners in TV's "Jewel in the Crown." She is presently working with Luc Besson on his new film due to be released later in 2011. She has previously worked with Bailey on Coward's Tonight at 8:30 at Chichester Festival Theatre and Don't Look Now at Sheffield Crucible and the Lyric Hammersmith.
Woodward has just completed a U.K. tour of Shakespeare's Globe production of Merry Wives of Windsor. She returns to the National Theatre in 2011 for The Cherry Orchard.
Smith has recently completed the feature film "Resistance" alongside Michael Sheen and Andrea Riseborough. Recent theatre credits include Dreams of Violence, directed by Max Stafford Clark (Soho Theatre and tour). She is best known as PC Maureen Havers in "Prime Suspect," and played Carol in Jim Cartwright's Road at the Royal Court and on film. Director Lucy Bailey last directed Fabrication, the Print Room's opening production. Other recent credits include Macbeth for Shakespeare's Globe, Dial M for Murder for West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds and Private Lives for Hampstead Theatre.
It is designed by seven-time Olivier Award winner William Dudley. Recent work includes All My Sons in the West End starring David Suchet, End of the Rainbow currently playing at the Trafalgar Studios and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, now touring America.
Snake in the Grass is Alan Ayckbourn’s 61st play and premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 2002. In a press statement, the venue's co-artistic directors Bailey and Winters commented, "We are delighted to be continuing our commitment to staging undiscovered and lesser known works by celebrated writers with Alan Ayckbourn's Snake in the Grass, a spine tingling ghost story, which is also a twisted portrait of family relationships. We have chosen to follow the premiere of Pasolini's Fabrication, a European avant garde play, with a rare thriller from one of our most popular English playwrights to give a diversity of programming which we wish to be the hallmark of The Print Room."
To book tickets, contact the box office on 0844 77 1000, or visit www.the-print-room.org for more details.
