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Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink is to make her West End debut next year in Romeo and Juliet, opposite British film star Noah Jupe, in a production directed by Olivier award-winner Robert Icke.
Sink, who plays Max in the Netflix sci-fi hit, started her career on stage. She was cast in the lead role in the musical Annie when she was 10, and remained in it for 18 months in New York. “I was a Broadway kid, so I’ve always dreamed about doing a show in the West End,” she said. “To get to do that in one of Shakespeares’s most famous plays under Rob’s direction with Noah will be such an exciting challenge. London theatre has this incredible energy, and I can’t wait to be a part of it.” Sink becomes the latest in a line of US stars who have made their West End debuts in recent years, including Sigourney Weaver (The Tempest), Brie Larson (Elektra) and Susan Sarandon (Mary Page Marlowe).
Jupe, whose early films included the horror movie A Quiet Place, plays Hamlet in Chloé Zhao’s version of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel Hamnet starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal. He will make his stage debut as Romeo. “Theatre is something I’ve always been intrigued by. It seems like such a challenging and rewarding experience for an actor,” he said. “So I was very excited to hear about this project. The combination of Romeo, Rob and Sadie is an opportunity you simply cannot turn down.”
Icke, whose version of Oedipus was a hot ticket in the West End and is now on Broadway, said that Romeo and Juliet is “an explosive play, filled with heat and life, which confronts us with the fragility of our lives are and the momentousness of every last second”. He added: “This is one of the plays I’ve returned to again and again, and the opportunity to tackle it in London with two wonderful young actors is hugely exciting.” Icke directed Romeo and Juliet in 2012 for Headlong theatre company, and was acclaimed for his 2017 Almeida theatre production of Hamlet, starring Andrew Scott.
Romeo and Juliet will have a set and costumes designed by Hildegard Bechtler, one of Icke’s regular collaborators, and will run at the Harold Pinter theatre from 16 March to 6 June. By then Stranger Things fans will know the fate of Sink’s character, Max, who was left in a coma at the end of season four. The new season of Stranger Things begins later this month, followed by three episodes on Boxing Day and the finale on New Year’s Day.
While that series was in post-production, Sink starred in the play John Proctor Is the Villain, a high-school riff on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – a performance that earned her a Tony award nomination. John Proctor Is the Villain is transferring from Broadway to London’s Royal Court, with its cast yet to be announced, and will open within a week of Romeo and Juliet.
