Cast announced for The Royal Court and LIFT’s production of ECHO (EVERY COLD-HEARTED OXYGEN)

The Royal Court and LIFT (London’s International Festival of Theatre) have announced five of the fifteen artists who will perform in the world premiere of ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen), which will run at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs from 13 - 27 July.

Kathryn Hunter (Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead), Toby Jones (Mr Bates vs. The Post Office), Fiona Shaw (Killing Eve), Meera Syal (Roar) and Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem (Cabaret) will each perform this new work from critically acclaimed Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour and director Omar Elerian.

ECHO pushes the boundaries of Soleimanpour’s signature unrehearsed cold reads. An additional ten artists and dates for each performer will be announced in the coming weeks.

Across the three week run, a different performer will take to the stage at each show without having a clue of what is going to be asked of them. Unrehearsed and unprepared, the script becomes their guide as they journey through the story of the playwright, connected live from his flat in Berlin. Or is he? Can we really know where or when we are?

ECHO asks us to confront what it feels like to be an immigrant in time. Fusing technology with the oldest tricks in the book, ECHO is an experiment in concept touring for the age of climate crisis: an ambitious, magical and uncompromising production where no one travels yet everybody can be present.

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