Cast announced for Roxy Cook’s debut play A Woman Walks Into a Bank at Theatre503

Casting has been announced for Roxy Cook’s debut play A Woman Walks Into a Bank at Theatre503.

The production will run at the venue from 21 November to 15 December 2023, extending its original run due to demand.

Making up the cast are Keith Dunphy (Under Black Rock, Arcola) playing C/A Debt Collector, Giulia Innocenti (Inspector Sands’ Wuthering Heights) playing A/An Old Woman and Sam Newton (Big Big Sky, Hampstead) playing B/A Young Man. The part of a cat, Sally is played by all three.

The play’s writer Roxy Cook directs the production with associate and movement director Sam Hooper (Bonnie and Clyde, Hayes Theatre Sydney), set and costume design by David Allen (Lonely Planet, Trafalgar Studios; Associate to Tom Scutt incl. Cabaret, West End), lighting design by Joe Price (My Name is Rachel Corrie, Young Vic) and sound design and composition by Hugh Sheehan (Pennyroyal, Finborough). Casting is by Nadine Rennie CDG.

A darkly funny modern fairytale, A Woman Walks Into a Bank was selected from over 1400 submissions from 45 countries to win the 2023 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award. A powerful portrayal of a country in crisis, this wild romp through modern Moscow uses biting humour and absurdism to interrogate the social apathy tearing Russia apart from the inside out.

In the afterglow of an incident-free 2018 World Cup, an old woman walks into a bank in Moscow and is conned into taking out a high interest loan – which she immediately forgets about. A catastrophic series of events is set in motion… with only her cat Sally to bear witness.

Roxy Cook, playwright and director said: “A Woman Walks Into a Bank starts with a true story – something that did really happen to my grandmother in Moscow. The rest is fiction, a sort of modern Russian fairytale I’ve imagined to try and understand the bank manager who conned her and the debt collector who harassed her.

“Oligarchs, spies and politicians ARE part of the ‘Russian story’ – but they’re only one part of it. And maybe an act as small as a bank loan can tell us more about Russia than any sexy spy thriller ever can.

“I’d love A Woman Walks Into a Bank to take UK audiences on a journey through modern Moscow – but through the eyes of ordinary Russians. Not the brave protestors risking their lives for democracy, or the pro-Putin zombies spraying Z on their cars. But the majority. Disillusioned, disconnected… or just too tired to care.”

For more information and tickets, visit theatre503.com