FAR AWAY

Text - Caryl Churchill
Direction - Stephen Daldry

Set design - Ian MacNeil
Costume design - Catherine Zuber
Lighting design - Rick Fisher
Sound design - Paul Arditti
Associate director - Michael Sexton
Production stage manager - Martha Donaldson

Cast: Alexa Eisenstein, Marin Ireland, Frances McDormand, Chris Messina and Gina Rose.

Performances begin November 1, 2002
Opening night November 11, 2002

As Far Away begins, a young girl is in an idyllic country setting. The girl cannot sleep and she questions her aunt about the mysterious goings-on out in the shed. From this seemingly innocent beginning, we are led to a world where the line has disappeared between the normal and the fantastic, beauty and horror, plain talk and poetry. In three brief acts, Far Away is a spellbinding fable.

NYTW has a longstanding relationship with Caryl Churchill, having produced the American premieres of Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1990) and Mad Forest (1991). Her work offers a challenging commentary on political and social issues through an astonishing mix of poetry, absurdism and moral seriousness. In 1992, NYTW inaugurated its new theatre on East 4th Street with her plays, Owners and Traps.

Caryl Churchill's previous plays include Owners, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Traps, Cloud Nine, Top Girls, Fen, Serious Money, Ice Cream, Mad Forest, The Skriker, Blue Heart, and This Is a Chair. Her newest play, A Number, opened at the Royal Court in September.

Stephen Daldry is an Associate Director at the Royal Court Theatre in London. He was Director of the Royal Court from 1998-2000, Artistic Director of the Royal Court from 1993-1998 and of the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill from 1989-1992. His productions for the Royal Court include: A Number, Far Away, Via Dolorosa, This is a Chair, Body Talk, Rat in the Skull, The Kitchen, The Editing Process, and Search and Destroy. Other theatre productions include: An Inspector Calls (Royal National Theatre, West End, Broadway, international); Machinal (Royal National Theatre); Damned for Despair, The Fleisser Plays (with Annie Castledine), and Figaro Gets Divorced (Gate). He directed the award-winning film Billy Elliot. His latest film The Hours is to be released later this year.

Academy Award winner Frances McDormand has established a worldwide cinema audience with leading roles in a variety of films including her award winning portrayal of Marge Gunderson in the acclaimed Coen Brothers’ film, Fargo. She starred in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous with Billy Crudup and Kate Hudson by Dreamworks for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe, BAFTA Award and Academy Award, and for which she won several Critic’s Awards. She plays the mother of a young journalist who comes of age by going on the road with a band. She was most recently seen in The Man Who Wasn’t There, for the Coen Brothers starring opposite Billy Bob Thornton as well as City By the Sea opposite Robert De Niro. McDormand was also Oscar-nominated for her supporting performance in Mississippi Burning. Mcdormand can next be seen in Laurel Canyon.

Frances starred in Curtis Hansen’s Wonder Boys, opposite Michael Douglas and Tobey Maquire. She also starred in Tristar’s Madeline, Gregory Hoblit’s Primal Fear, John Sayles’s Lone Star, and Alan Taylor’s Palookaville. Included among McDormand’s other feature film credits are performances in Mick Jackson’s Chattahoochee with Gary Oldman; Sam Raimi’s Darkman opposite Liam Neeson; Ken Loach’s Hidden Agenda; The Butcher’s Wife with Demi Moore and Passed Away with Bob Hoskins. She also appeared in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts John Boorman’s Beyond Rangoon and Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road. With the Coen Brothers, she has made two other films, Blood Simple, and Raising Arizona.

McDormand studied at the Yale School of Drama. Her Broadway stage successes include her Tony-nominated performance as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. She also starred in The Sisters Rosensweig at Lincoln Center and The Swan at The Public Theatre. McDormand starred as Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire in Dublin at the Gate Theater and then in Dare Clubb’s Oedipus at the Blue Light Theater Company opposite Billy Crudup.

She has starred in the television movies Crazy in Love directed by Martha Coolidge, The Good Ole Boys directed by Tommy Lee Jones, and Talking With... directed by Kathy Bates, and was Emmy nominated for Hidden in America, opposite Jeff Bridges.

Far Away originally opened to critical and popular acclaim in December 2000 at London's Royal Court Theatre and then transferred to the West End. The Daily Mail called Far Away, "One of the most amazing theatrical coups I have ever seen." Time Out said, "[Stephen] Daldry switches from the epic to the intimate with astonishing ease." And according to the Sunday Times, "You emerge shaken, but not too numb to think. There's nothing like this play around today."