Full casting has been announced for Kyoto – a major new co-production from The RSC and Good Chance.
Tony award-nominated actor Stephen Kunken (A Spy Among Friends, Billions, The Handmaid’s Tale, Enron) will make his RSC debut in the role of American oil lobbyist and master strategist in this fast-paced political thriller about the historic 1997 Kyoto climate summit.
Written by Good Chance co-founders, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson and directed by Stephen Daldry (Stranger Things The First Shadow, Billy Elliot, The Inheritance) and Justin Martin (Stranger Things The First Shadow, Prima Facie), this breathless and gripping tale recounts the fateful hours of tense negotiation which lead up to the historic signing of the UN’s landmark climate conference in December 1997.
Global in scale and yet personal at heart, big oil, big money and big egos clash in the battle to secure the world’s first legally binding emissions targets…and to make the impossible, for the first time, seem possible.
Joining Stephen are Jenna Augen (Shirley Pearlman), Jorge Bosch who plays Argentinian ambassador Raul Estrada Oyuela, Vincent Franklin (Fred Singer), Dale Rapley (Bert Bolin) and Olivia Barrowclough (Secretariat).
Representing the National Delegations are Andrea Gatchalian as Kiribati / AOSIS, Raad Rawi as Mohammad Al Sabban / OPEC, Kwong Loke as Prof. Shukong Zhong / China, Nancy Crane as USA/Wirth/Eisenstat, Ingrid Oliver as Angela Merkel / Germany, Jude Akuwudike as Prof. Mark Mwandosya / Tanzania, Ferdy Roberts as UK/Prescott/Houghton and Togo Igawa as Hiroshi Ohki / Japan
RSC Co-Artistic Directors, Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey said; “In building our inaugural season at the RSC, we set ourselves the challenge of reaching across borders, to seek out the most exciting writers, directors and actors of our times and asking them which stories they feel a passionate need to tell. To be working with Good Chance and their long-term collaborators Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin on this powerful and urgent new play is a particularly thrilling example; one which speaks directly to how the RSC can be in conversation with the world.”
Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson said:
“Good Chance began nine years ago in the Calais Jungle refugee camp, where thousands of people from dozens of countries lived side by side. Together with camp residents we built a theatre, and for eight months made art of all kinds and cultures. Since then, we have created work that celebrates and interrogates our differences and our common human experience, always asking – how can we live together?
Kyoto is a play about how to agree, in a world awash with disagreement. In many ways, the Kyoto Protocol should never have happened. How could 176 countries find consensus on a subject as complex and important as climate change, especially as powerful forces worked to undermine the process at every stage? And yet, against all the odds, they did. We’re thrilled and honoured to be creating Kyoto with the RSC as part of Daniel and Tamara’s first season.”
Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin added:
“This play marks our first time directing for the RSC, an exciting moment for us both to take part in a new chapter in the RSC’s story.
Kyoto is a play which speaks directly and urgently to the world we live in and the ecological crisis in which we find ourselves. In the spirit of the 1997 climate summit, we are blessed to be working with a truly international company of artists; all of whom bring their own unique perspectives, cultures and experience”.
Kyoto runs from 18 June – 13 July 2024 at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.
What’s on at The RSC?
The current season at the RSC, the first for new co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, opened with Love’s Labour’s Lost starring Bridgerton’s Luke Thompson playing in Stratford to 18 May; upcoming productions include English (9 May -1 June) & a new stage adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (18 April to 1 June 2024). See here for a full list of announced shows.
RSC shows in London: Matilda The Musical at the Cambridge Theatre and My Neighbour Totoro at the Gillian Lynne Theatre (8 March to 2 November 2025)
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