Broadway actress Jill Paice has been cast as Scarlett O’Hara in Trevor Nunn’s forthcoming stage musical adaptation of epic novel Gone With The Wind at the New London. British actors Madeleine Worrall and Edward Baker-Duly join her in the cast playing Melanie and Ashley Wilkes.
Paice is no stranger to the West End, having originated the role of Laura Fairlie in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical The Woman In White, also directed by Nunn, at the Palace theatre in 2004. She subsequently reprised her role in the Broadway production of the show. Paice’s other stage credits in the US include Les Misèrables, Mamma Mia! and Curtains.
Baker-Duly has also previously worked with director Nunn, having played Joseph Cable in the National Theatre production of South Pacific. In addition to theatre credits including Singin’ In The Rain, Side By Side By Sondheim and Salad Days, Baker-Duly is known to viewers of TV’s Grange Hill as Mr Malachay.
Worrall is currently playing the title role in Stephen Fry’s Cinderella at the Old Vic. She has previously appeared in London in The Anniversary, Three Sisters and The Villain’s Opera.
Three years in the planning, this musical adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s famous 1936 novel has been written by Margaret Martin and adapted by Trevor Nunn. Set in the 1860s in Atlanta, Georgia, it follows the epic story of 17-year-old Scarlett O’Hara, whose life of luxury on her father’s plantation is rocked by the onset of the Civil War. Over the course of a decade, Scarlett’s turbulent journey through war and peace is mirrored by her rocky and passionate relationship with Rhett Butler.
As yet no one has been cast as Rhett Butler, the role famously played in the 1939 film by Clark Gable, opposite Vivien Leigh as Scarlett.
Gone With The Wind opens at the New London on 22 April after previews from 5 April, and is booking until 27 September.
Currently occupying the New London is the Royal Shakespeare Company, which presents Chekhov’s The Seagull and Shakespeare’s King Lear in repertoire until 12 January. em>CB