Full Cast and Creative Team Announced for The Penelopiad

York Theatre Royal today announces the full cast and creative team for its major UK revival of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. Joining the previously announced Amelia Bullmore in the leading role of Penelope are Nell Baker (Laertes), Danielle Bird (Eurycleia), Olivia Burton-Laws (Naiad Mother), Faye Campbell (Melantho), Pena Iiyambo (Helen), Kat Johns-Burke (Antinous), Syakira Moeladi (Telemachus), and Charlie Russell (Odysseus). Directed by York Theatre Royal’s Creative Director Juliet Forster, the production will open on 14 October, with previews from 10 October, and runs until 31 October 2026.

Adapted by Margaret Atwood from her critically acclaimed novella, The Penelopiad is a feminist retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey, reimagining the epic through the eyes of Penelope and her chorus of maids.

Juliet Forster, Creative Director at York Theatre Royal said, “It has been such a joy to meet so many brilliant women over the last couple of months, and what a phenomenally talented cast and creative team we have lined up for The Penelopiad! It is clear just how strongly this story resonates with people today, and I am looking forward to a rehearsal room buzzing with excitement and creativity.

“Margaret Atwood’s powerful script is so rich with wit and humour as she unveils a new feminist perspective on the familiar Odyssey myth. The show is interwoven with songs and exuberant movement and we hope to offer audiences an entirely different way of understanding the story of Penelope and her maids – and most importantly a great night out!”

Also announced today, joining the previously announced Juliet Forster, is an all-female creative team comprising Sara Perks (Designer), Alexandra Stafford (Lighting Designer), Kate Marlais (Composer, Musical Director and Sound Designer), Michelle Edwards (Movement Director), and Ellie Collyer-Bristow CDG (Casting Director).

To ensure as many people as possible can enjoy the show, the first preview performance will be offered on a ‘Pay What You Choose’ basis, allowing audiences to pay as little or as much as they wish. The York Theatre Royal Choir will also be doing two special performances for audiences on opening night and on press night (14 Oct) in the foyer before the show starts.

The Penelopiad premiered at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, in July 2007 in a co-production between the Royal Shakespeare Company and Canada’s National Arts Centre. This marks the first major UK revival of the show since that original staging.

Cast: Amelia Bullmore (Penelope), Nell Baker (Laertes), Danielle Bird (Eurycleia), Olivia Burton-Laws (Naiad Mother), Faye Campbell (Melantho), Pena Iiyambo (Helen), Kat Johns-Burke (Antinous), Syakira Moeladi (Telemachus), Charlie Russell (Odysseus).

Director: Juliet Forster; Designer: Sara Perks; Lighting Designer: Alexandra Stafford; Composer, Musical Director and Sound Designer: Kate Marlais; Movement Director: Michelle Edwards;

Casting Director: Ellie Collyer-Bristow CDG

THE ODYSSEY: HER STORY

Margaret Atwood, author of the modern feminist classic The Handmaid’s Tale, revisits Homer’s The Odyssey in a powerful, irreverent and darkly humorous retelling that unpicks one of the oldest of myths.

Immortalised as the devoted and faithful wife to the glorious Odysseus, Penelope waits 20 years for her husband to return from the Trojan War, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again. Now it’s time to hear the story of those left behind…

Reimagining this ancient tale, Atwood gives voice to the silenced Penelope and her chorus of maids. Wandering the underworld Penelope spins a different kind of thread: her side of the story – a tale of injustice, betrayal and revenge.

Adapted for the stage by Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood and interwoven with songs, York Theatre Royal’s production will be directed by Juliet Forster (Little Women, Around The World In 80 Days-ish!) This exuberant and witty retelling questions the version of events we think we know and exposes the truth behind the myth…

Amelia Bullmore plays Penelope. Her theatre credits include Circle Mirror Transformation (HOME Manchester), A Christmas Carol (Noël Coward Theatre), The Norman Conquests (The Old Vic and Circle in the Square Theatre, New York), The Crucible (Sheffield Crucible), Really Old, Like Forty Five (National Theatre), Road and The Queen and I (Leicester Haymarket, Royal Court Theatre and UK tour), The Thickness of Skin (Royal Court Theatre), A View from the Bridge, Romeo and Juliet (Royal Exchange Theatre and UK Tour), All My Sons and How The Other Half Lives (Cheltenham Everyman), Be-Bop-A-Lula (Liverpool Playhouse and UK tour), The Red Balloon (Contact Theatre), The Threepenny Opera (Birmingham Rep), Major Barbara and Sweet Bird of Youth (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow), The Way of The World (Wilton’s Musical Hall) and Ladies in the Lift (Red Stockings Theatre Company). Her television credits include Riot Women, The Buccaneers, Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack, Scott & Bailey (as series regular DCI Gill Murray and co-writer), Twenty Twelve, The Crown, Vienna Blood, I’m Alan Partridge, Jam, Big Train, State of Play, Ashes to Ashes, The Jetty, Marble Hall Murders, The Larkins and Coronation Street (as series regular Steph Barnes); and for film, Mrs Dalloway, Festival, The Truth, Endgame and What We Did on Our Holiday. Bullmore is also an acclaimed writer for TV, radio and stage – her play Di and Viv and Rose premiered at Hampstead Theatre before transferring to the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End.

Nell Baker plays Laertes. Her theatre credits include The Deep Blue Sea (Theatre Royal Haymarket and Bath Theatre Royal), The Nutcracker (Taunton Brewhouse), Wolf Country (East Riding Theatre and Cast, Doncaster), The Regalettes, Nearly The Goat, Gospel Street, Kaleidoscope (UK tours), Shudder (Soho Theatre), The Borrowers, Pinocchio, Ladies Unleashed (Hull Truck Theatre), Pericles Prince of Tyre, All’s Well That Ends Well (Friargate Theatre), Snow (The Theatre Chipping Norton), and Our Town (North Wall Arts Centre).

Danielle Bird plays Eurycleia. Her theatre credits include The Company of Wolves, Astley’s Astounding Adventures, The Prince and The Pauper (New Vic Theatre), The 39 Steps (Salisbury Playhouse, Mercury Theatre Colchester and Octagon Theatre Bolton), The Secret Lives of Daphne Du Maurier (Exeter Northcott Theatre), The Worst Witch (Vaudeville Theatre), Charlie & Stan (UK tour), A Pretty Sh*tty Love (Theatre Clwyd), The Comedy Of Errors (Mercury Theatre Colchester and Storyhouse Theatre, Chester), The Hypocrite (Hull Truck Theatre and RSC), Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Birmingham Rep), Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello and Cyrano De Bergerac (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, Storyhouse Chester). Her television credits include Hapless, The Investigator, The Wives Did It and The Double Life of Morton Coyle; and for film, Now You See Me 2.

Olivia Burton-Laws plays Naiad Mother. Olivia trained at Leeds Conservatoire and this is her professional debut.

Faye Campbell plays Melantho. Her theatre credits include No Such Things As Wolves (Birmingham Hippodrome), Bonnie and Clyde (The Old Joint Stock), Hamnet (Garrick Theatre and RSC), All New Adventures of Peter Pan and Cinderella (York Theatre Royal) and Peter Pan Reimagined (Birmingham Rep). Her television credits include The Cleaner and Champion; and for film, Finding Emily.

Pena Iiyambo plays Helen. Her theatre credits include Witness for the Prosecution (London County Hall), An Inspector Calls (National Theatre and UK tour), Lost and Found (Factory International, Manchester), Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical (Phoenix Theatre), The Hunt (Union Theatre), Spitting Image Live (Birmingham Rep), Gulliver’s Travels (Unicorn Theatre), and Bang Bang Bang (Royal Court Theatre and UK tour).

Kat Johns-Burke plays Antinous. Her theatre credits include The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Riverside Studios), Twelfth Night (Asylum Chapel), Peaky Blinders: The Rise (The Camden Garrison), Ladyfriends (53Two, Manchester), Raymond Briggs’ Father Christmas (Lyric Hammersmith Theatre), Mary and the Hyenas, Cabaret (Hull Truck Theatre and Wilton’s Music Hall), The Big Bitesize Breakfast Show (Edinburgh Festival Fringe); and for film, BARBS, Loner, Deposition and 5 Stages of Grief.

Syakira Moeladi plays Telemachus. Her theatre credits include The Waves (Jermyn Street Theatre), Princess Essex, The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare’s Globe), Dear Octopus (National Theatre), As You Like It (@sohoplace), Billy Elliot: The Musical (Victoria Palace Theatre), and Matilda: The Musical (Cambridge Theatre).

Charlie Russell plays Odysseus. Her theatre credits include Fanny (King’s Head Theatre and Watermill Theatre) and Birdsong (UK tour). For Mischief Theatre, in which she is Creative Associate and one of the co-founders, her credits include The Comedy About Spies (Adelphi Theatre), Groan Ups (Vaudeville Theatre), The Play That Goes Wrong (Duchess Theatre, UK tour, and Lyceum Theatre, Broadway), Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Apollo Theatre, Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Broadway, and Ahmanson Theatre, LA), The Comedy About A Bank Robbery (Criterion Theatre and UK tour). Her television credits include A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, The Goes Wrong Show, Doctors, And Then There Were None, and #FindTheGirl; and for film, Kite Strings.

Margaret Atwood is an internationally acclaimed writer, poet and essayist whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries. Her novels include The Handmaid’s Tale (recipient of Arthur C. Clarke Award – and subsequently adapted into the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning TV series), The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin (winner of the Booker prize), Cat’s Eye, The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Life Before Man, Bodily Harm, The Testaments (winner of the Booker prize), and The MaddAddam Trilogy. Her poetry collections include Double Persephone, The Circle Game, Power Politics, Morning in the Burned House, and The Door. Her essay collections include Negotiating with the Dead and Burning Questions. Atwood’s novella The Penelopiad was published in 2005 and later adapted in 2007 for the stage, marking her first theatrical work.

Creative Director of York Theatre Royal Juliet Forster directs. At York Theatre Royal she has directed Sleeping Beauty, His Last Report, Little Women, Around the World in 80 Days-ish!, Sovereign,  Aladdin, The Coppergate Woman,  A View from the Bridge, Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes, The Machine Stops, The Crucible, Twelfth Night, Betrayal, See How They Run, In Fog and Falling Snow, Two Planks and a Passion, A Number, Angels & Insects, Blue/Orange, Morgana le Fey, Escaping Alice, Oleanna, Rupert Brooke, Beyond Measure, The Journey, Jack and The Beanstalk, All New Adventures of Peter Pan, Cinderella, The Travelling Pantomime, The Elves and the Shoemakers, The Book of Dragons, Whatever Next and Rabbit and Hedgehog. Other theatre includes Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, York & Blenheim), Sense and Sensibility (Theatre by the Lake), The Tempest (Winchester Theatre Royal), The Devil at Coventry, View, Alien Invasion, Five Princes and a Wedding (Belgrade Theatre), The Legend of Perseus, The Night Before Christmas, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (Big Wooden Horse), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and A Tale of Two Cities (Wolverhampton Grand Theatre).