GR Articles

Playwright Nick Whitby turned actor at the Donmar Warehouse to save his sell-out play, To The Green Fields Beyond, from cancellation when actor Ray Winstone temporarily pulled out with an eye injury.

Whitby, who has no training as an actor, made his West End debut as a reconnaissance officer, allowing Gary Powell to take Winstone's role as the driver in the tale of a tank crew on the eve of battle.

Sam Mendes, who is likely to transfer his stunning production of Nick Whitby's haunting To the Green Fields Beyond to the West End and Broadway next year. New York producer Anita Waxman and her partners are keen to ensure Whitby's play travels across the Atlantic. Cast includes Finbar Lynch, Ray Winstone, Dougray Scott and a terrific ensemble.

Dougray Scott, the Scottish villain from the recent Hollywood blockbuster "Mission Impossible 2," returns to the London stage for the first time in seven years in the world premiere of Nick Whitby's To the Green Fields Beyond, beginning previews Sept. 14 and opening Sept. 25 for a run through Nov. 25. Ray Winstone costars in the war drama, directed by Sam Mendes.

The production is a return to the stage for Mendes, too, who had phenomenal Oscar-winning success this year with his first film, "American Beauty." Mendes, the Donmar's artistic director, had planned -- and already begun casting for -- a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for the autumn run but was so taken with Whitby's script that he changed the theatre's schedule at short notice. Speaking at the time, he said: "Shakespeare can wait. You have to take advantage of a good and exciting new play like this. It is not every day they land on your desk."

Poised to take advantage, too, are American producers Elizabeth Williams and Anita Waxman (aka Alexis Productions). They have a three-year option on any work coming out of the Donmar, and they're flying down to catch the opening of Green Fields and consider possibilities of a Broadway transfer. (Alexis Productions is also currently trying to work out a deal to bring the Donmar's acclaimed Orpheus Descending, with Helen Mirren, to New York.)

Whitby's drama takes place in the autumn of 1918 and examines the relationships between the men in a tank crew. Members of the multi-racial crew hail from all over the British Empire, including the Caribbean and India, and react differently to the extreme pressures during combat. During the First World War, many Army generals believed that the armored tank, then a new weapon of war, could break the deadlock of the trenches, but most of them seized up as a result of unforeseen mechanical errors.

Scott was last seen on stage in London in Unidentified Human Remains in 1993. Though his many British television credits include "Taggart" and "Soldier, Soldier," he is becoming increasingly known for his big screen roles in films such as "Mission Impossible 2," "Ever After," "Deep Impact," and the soon to be released "Enigma," also starring Kate Winslet.

Fellow film star Winstone's many screen credits include "Scum," "Quadrophenia," and more recently, "Nil By Mouth" and "The War Zone." His recent stage credits include This Is a Chair and Dealer's Choice. Winstone reportedly withdrew from numerous film projects in order to work with Mendes on To the Green Fields Beyond.

Scott and Winstone are joined in the cast by Finbar Lynch, who received a Tony nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the National Theatre production of Tennessee Williams' Not About Nightingales. The production also features Danny Babington, Hugh Dancy, Nini Ganatra, Danny Sapani and Adrian Scarborough.

Just after he won an Oscar for "American Beauty", director Sam Mendes was overlooked by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in favor of Pedro Almodovar. Such disappointments are unlikely to cool Mendes's love affair with London, however, since his heart belongs to the 250-seat Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, which he directs. It was at this theatre that Mendes gave the gartered Alan Cumming a leg up in "Cabaret", and unveiled a naked Nicole Kidman in "The Blue Room".

This month, he returns to his roots to direct Nick Whitby's new play, "To the Green Fields Beyond", about the relationships among members of a multiracial tank crew during the 1916 Battle of the Somme (44-20-7369-1732; tickets, $23-$36; Sept. 14-Nov. 25).

August 30, 2000
IMDb Celebrity News
"Ray Winstone Characters Have More Depth Than You Think"
Cockney actor Ray Winstone always plays tough guys with soft centers - just like himself. The Nil by Mouth (1997) star only takes up a role if his character is not one dimensional. Ray says, "I've always been a nice guy. If you look at the characters I've played you could say they're bad guys, but in reality there is always something nice about them or something in the background "They're not one dimensional. I mean in Nil by Mouth (1997) the guy was animal, but the movie itself was a love story."

LONDON -- It's tempting to think of the forthcoming London legit autumn as so many ladies' nights, since Shaftesbury Avenue come November should find Jessica Lange, Felicity Kendal, Daryl Hannah and Jerry Hall all cheek-by-theatrical-jowl.

That scenario, however, means leaving out of the mix Dougray Scott, Michael Gambon and novelist/playwright/politician/actor (choose one) Jeffrey Archer, who are among the season's more notable males.

Whatever one's perspective, the capital is bracing for the busiest spate of theater in some time, with a dozen major openings (and as many minor ones) due in September alone.

Is there a sufficient audience? Time will surely tell, just as it will assess the latest from David Hare, Matthew Bourne and Andrew Lloyd Webber, not to mention the return to theater directing after two years of Oscar-winner Sam Mendes.

"We all spin off each other," says producer Lee Menzies of the imminent volume of work. "It rekindles one's interest in going to the theater."

Menzies' entry is among the more unusual -- "The Accused," written by and starring (!) 60-year-old Lord Archer, London's erstwhile mayoral candidate and perpetual writer of populist fiction (and, sometimes, plays). A Dec. 5 opening is skedded for the courtroom drama, with the audience nightly voting on the Archer character's guilt -- or not.

"The bigger the market, the better," says Katharine Dore, producer of "The Car Man," director-choreographer Bourne's first dance-musical piece since nabbing two 1999 Tonys for "Swan Lake."

The £1.2 million ($1.9 million) show began a pre-London tour in May and opens Sept. 13 at the Old Vic. Its advance -- particularly impressive in the dog days of August -- hovers in the $800,000 range.

"If we didn't have such a strong product, I would be immensely nervous about going this early," adds Dore, who moved up "The Car Man" opening by five days so as not to clash with "The Beautiful Game," only then to have the Lloyd Webber-Ben Elton musical push back its press night by more than a week, to Sept. 26 at the Cambridge.

This show, adds Bourne, 40, "has no parallel, really; it is its own thing."

Nor can it hurt that sex sells -- note the healthy box office enjoyed by such otherwise disparate entries of late as "The Blue Room," "Closer" and "The Graduate," the last-named of which continues at the Gielgud with a critically derided, if leggy, Jerry Hall.

So it's not wholly surprising that Sept. 28 sees the first preview at the Haymarket of a nine-week revival of "The Blue Room." This is the recent Chichester Festival Theater production of David Hare's play, not the Nicole Kidman-led original.

"As far as we're concerned, it's an opportunity to do an interesting play by one of our leading writers," fest director Andrew Welch says of the London-bound remount, which played Chichester's 285-seat Minerva Theater throughout July. Loveday Ingram directs.

Relative unknowns Camilla Power and Michael Higgs play the multiple roles first associated in London and then on Broadway with Kidman and Iain Glen.

Hare, in turn, will be competing for audiences with himself: He is author and director of Royal Court season-opener, "My Zinc Bed," premiering Sept. 14. Steven Mackintosh, Tom Wilkinson, and Julia Ormond comprise the cast.

Sex is unlikely to stray far off the menu of two October openings, each of which brings an unexpected visitor to the West End. Oct. 9 at the Queen's sees the London legit debut of Daryl Hannah in "The Seven Year Itch." The George Axelrod play remains best-known from the 1955 Marilyn Monroe film.

"You don't import an American star who is gorgeous and not sell the fact that she's gorgeous," says co-producer Laurence Myers, who is banking $550,000 in the hope that a West End public will agree. (The play's last West End stand, at the Albery in 1985, was wanly received.)

Directing the cast of nine is an unfamiliar West End name, erstwhile Oscar nominee Michael Radford ("Il Postino"), whose latest movie, "Dancing at the Blue Iguana," stars Hannah as a stripper.

With the ink not quite dry on contracts, an October berth at the Vaudeville is planned for a younger man-older woman romance between "Home Alone" phenomenon Macaulay Culkin -- who turns 20 this week -- and French thesp Irene Jacob. (Elizabeth McGovern is under discussion to join the four-person cast.)

Their play, "Madame Melville," is poised to mark a rare commercial foray for American writer-director Richard Nelson, who has so far this year won both a Tony (for "James Joyce's The Dead") and an Olivier (for "Goodnight Children Everywhere").

Culkin will play a 15-year-old American in 1966 Paris who gets seduced by a Parisienne (Jacob) into art and music as well as (bien sur) l'amour.

"Richard's writing very well these days," says New York producer-director Gregory Mosher, one of several London backers of Nelson's $700,000 (or thereabouts) show. Is this tantamount to a pre-Broadway tryout? Mosher demurs: "A London run is what this is; what happens later, happens."

A similar reluctance to prophesy was sounded by dramatist Christopher Hampton, whose English-language translation of Yasmina Reza's "Conversations After a Burial" opens Sept. 12 at the Almeida; Claire Bloom heads director Howard Davies' six-person ensemble.

"I'm never able to call these things," says Hampton, whose 1998 version of Reza's "The Unexpected Man" finally reaches New York this fall.

"No one would have expected 'Art' -- Reza's global Tony-winning world-beater -- "to be quite as successful as it has been."

This latest opening is in fact Reza's first play, dating back to 1987 Paris where it won the best play Moliere, that city's equivalent of the Tony.

New York interest is bound to be keen in other openings, too, starting with Trevor Nunn's National Theater production of "The Cherry Orchard," with real-life siblings Vanessa and Corin Redgrave cast as sister and brother in Chekhov's play. Sept. 21 is the Cottesloe opening, where the present booking period is already sold out.

A September 2001 New York run is quietly being hatched for the National's new "Hamlet," starring Simon Russell Beale and directed by John Caird. The production opened Aug. 16 in Elsinore as the first London "Hamlet" in 21 years to travel to the play's Danish location. The National bow is Sept. 5 in the Lyttelton.

A November start at the Comedy is on course for producer Robert Fox's remounting of Harold Pinter's 1960 "The Caretaker."

Playwright Patrick Marber ("Closer") directs a high-powered cast consisting of Michael Gambon, Rupert Graves and Douglas Hodge.

Equally starry is the Tyrone family quartet assembled for director Robin Phillips' revival of "Long Day's Journey into Night," opening Nov. 21 at the Lyric: Jessica Lange and Charles Dance as Eugene O'Neill's troubled Tyrones, with Paul Rudd and British TV heartthrob Paul Nicholls as their variably tormented sons.

Enthuses Harold Sanditen, inhouse associate to producer Bill Kenwright: "It's the most gorgeous Tyrone family in the history of the planet."

Lange will be appearing next door to Felicity Kendal, an English perennial who was a local minx back when Daryl Hannah was barely pubescent. Kendal and Frances de la Tour play married women who once shared a lover in "Fallen Angels," director Michael Rudman's revival of Noel Coward's 1925 play; expect an Oct. 25 bow at the Apollo.

Overseas attention looks to be most focused on the Donmar Warehouse's "To the Green Fields Beyond," "American Beauty" helmer Mendes' first play since that first go-round of "The Blue Room" two autumns ago, also at the Donmar.

Displacing Mendes' original choice of play, "Twelfth Night," the Nick Whitby premiere opens Sept. 25; Ray Winstone ("Nil By Mouth") and "Mission: Impossible 2's" Dougray Scott head the cast, the latter in his first stage outing in seven years.

"I was a bit nervous about going back on stage, and Sam said, 'it's like a movie, this play,' " confesses Scott, who came to rehearsals barely a month after finishing the Tom Stoppard-scripted movie "Enigma."

Not that the Scottish thesp has time to track all the other shows stirring into life around him. "I have tunnel vision completely; I have no idea what else is opening."

August 10, 2000
BBC Entertainment
"Mendes to team with Hanks"
Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes has recruited Tom Hanks to play a gangster in his next movie, it has been reported.

The British film-maker, whose debut picture American Beauty cleared up at this year's Academy Awards, is teaming up with Hanks to make The Road to Perdition - according to Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Hanks, twice an Oscar winner himself, will play a hardman nicknamed The Angel of Death, who is seeking revenge for the murder of his wife and two sons.

To the Green Fields and Beyond, which opens in the autumn, will star British tough-guy actor Ray Winstone and Dougray Scott, the villain in Mission: Impossible 2.

Dougray Scott, the Scottish villain from the recent Hollywood blockbuster "Mission Impossible 2" returns to the London stage next month for the first time in seven years. Scott will star, with Ray Winstone, in the world premiere of Nick Whitby's To the Green Fields Beyond. Directed by Sam Mendes, the war drama opens at the Donmar Warehouse on Sept. 25 (previews from Sept. 14) and continues to Nov. 25.

The production is a return to the stage for Mendes, too, who had phenomenal Oscar-winning success this year with his first film, "American Beauty." Mendes, the Donmar's artistic director, had planned -- and already begun casting for -- a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for the autumn run, but was so taken with Whitby's script that he changed the theatre's schedule at short notice. Speaking at the time, he said: "Shakespeare can wait. You have to take advantage of a good and exciting new play like this. It is not every day they land on your desk."

The drama takes place in the autumn of 1918 and examines the relationships between the men in a tank crew. Members of the multi-racial crew hail from all over the British Empire, including the Caribbean and India, and react differently to the extreme pressures during combat. During the First World War, many Army generals believed that the armored tank, then a new weapon of war, could break the deadlock of the trenches, but most of them seized up as a result of unforeseen mechanical errors.

August 5, 2000
The Hollywood Reporter
"'M:I-2 star Scott returns to stage for Sam Mendes"
LONDON -- British actor Dougray Scott, one of the stars of "Mission: Impossible 2," is to return to the London stage for a play to be directed by Oscar-winning "American Beauty" director Sam Mendes, Scott's agents said Friday, (Aug. 4). Scott has signed to take a leading role in the play "To The Green Fields And Beyond," a new work from writer Nick Whitby that details the story of a multi-ethnic tank crew set against the backdrop of the First World War. The play is scheduled to preview on September 14 and is set to run until November 25 at the Donmar Warehouse, where director Mendes is, aside from his directing duties, artistic director for the theater board. Mendes shot to global fame as director of "American Beauty" and currently has a number of film projects under consideration having struck a first-look deal with "Beauty" studio DreamWorks SKG. He had originally been scheduled to direct an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" at the theater but – according to Mendes – opted for the new play when he read Whitby's script. Scott joins a cast that also includes British film actor Ray Winstone ("The War Zone," "Nil By Mouth"). He has just completed a role in Michael Apted's upcoming "Enigma," which co-stars Kate Winslet ("Titanic") and Saffron Burrows ("Deep Blue Sea"). Scott is repped by Peters, Fraser and Dunlop in the United Kingdom. (Stuart Kemp)

August 5, 2000
BBC News
"Mission star Scott onstage with Mendes"
Dougray Scott, currently starring as a villain in Mission: Impossible 2, is to appear at London's Donmar Warehouse in a production by director Sam Mendes.

The Scottish star will star in the World War I story To The Green Fields And Beyond.

He has also just finished shooting in Michael Apted's World War II spy thriller, Enigma, co-starring with Kate Winslet.

Mendes' first outing as director since his Oscar-laden film American Beauty will open in London in late September.

August 3, 2000
Hollywood.com
"Great Scott!"
Dougray Scott, seen this summer as Tom Cruise’s arch-nemesis in "M:I-2," will star in a play directed by Oscar-winning helmer Sam Mendes ("American Beauty"), the Reporter says. The Scottish-born Scott is set to appear in "To the Green Fields and Beyond" this fall at Donmar Warehouse in London.

Scott, Drew Barrymore’s Prince Charming in "Ever After," recently finished up the spy film "Enigma" with Kate Winslet.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 star Dougray Scott has obviously been spying on London theatre. The British actor is the latest Hollywood actor to tread the boards at the Donmar Warehouse.

Scott will feature in The Green Fields and Beyond, a play about British tank corps fighting in France during World War One. It will be directed by Oscar winner Sam Mendes.

The Scottish-bred actor shot to fame recently through his role as bad guy Sean Ambrose in mi:2. Prior to that he starred in several Brit-flicks including This Year's Love and Twin Town. He has just finished filming espionage thriller Enigma, alongside Kate Winslet and Corin Redgrave.

August 2, 2000
BBC News
"Mendes Keeps Hollywood Waiting"
Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes is keeping Hollywood waiting by returning to the London stage before deciding on his next film project.

He has picked Dougray Scott - the villain in Mission: Impossible 2 - and Ray Winstone to star in the play To the Green Fields and Beyond, which Mendes will direct this autumn at the Donmar Warehouse.

Mendes has been inundated with offers from Hollywood since winning his Oscar for American Beauty, but has not yet committed to his next project.

He is working on the script for a thriller called The Lookout for DreamWorks, according to Hollywood magazine Daily Variety.

August 2, 2000
Empire Online
"Scott And Mendes In Green Fields"
Dougray Scott, the scheming spy-turned-villain in M:I-2, will be taking a step back from the explosive action of John Woo’s blockbuster when he takes a role in Sam Mendes’ new play at London's Donmar Warehouse theatre, according to Mr Showbiz.

The Scottish actor, who has just finished Michael Apted’s WWII spy thriller Enigma with Kate Winslet, will be appearing on stage as Lieutenant Childs in To the Green Fields and Beyond, which focuses on a British Tank corps fighting in France during the first world war. Mendes chose to return to the Donmar stage, where he is artistic director, rather than immediately follow up his Oscar sweeping American Beauty with another film.

To the Green Fields and Beyond will open at Donmar Warehouse in late September and run until 25 November.

The Scottish-born actor is to appear in To the Green Fields and Beyond, a play which centres on a British tank corps fighting in France during the first world war. He will play the role of Lt Childs.

Scott, who has just finished filming the spy thriller Enigma with Kate Winslet, will begin rehearsals today. The play is expected to open in late September and run until November 25th.

Mendes, who was named Best Director at this year's Academy Awards for his film directorial debut American Beauty, is renowned for his Donmar productions. His best known work there is The Blue Room which starred Nicole Kidman, whose performance was described by one theatre critic as 'Theatrical Viagra'.

Mendes had earlier made it clear that he wanted to return to the Donmar, where he is artistic director, before he directed another film but, according to Variety magazine, he has been working closely with Get Shorty writer Scott Frank on a script for a thriller called The Lookout.

August 2, 2000
LineOne News
"Mendes Keeps Hollywood On Tenterhooks"
Oscar-winning director SAM MENDES is keeping Hollywood waiting by returning to the London stage before deciding on his next film project.

He has picked DOUGRAY SCOTT, the villain in Mission: Impossible 2, to star in the play To the Green Fields and Beyond, which Mendes will direct this autumn at the Donmar Warehouse.

RAY WINSTONE is expected to co-star in the production, which revolves around a British tank corps fighting in France during the First World War.

Ever since winning his Oscar for American Beauty, Mendes has been inundated with offers from Hollywood but has not yet committed to his next project.

But he is working on the script for a thriller called The Lookout for DreamWorks, reports Daily Variety.

Brendan Fraser, star of The Mummy, is set to appear in a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof next year.

Meanwhile, Scottish actor Dougray Scott, currently appearing alongside Tom Cruise in MI:2, is to join forces with Ray Winstone in To the Green Fields and Beyond at the Donmar Warehouse later this year, reports the Popcorn website.

The pair will be directed by Sam Mendes, who won an Oscar for his film directorial debut American Beauty.

August 1, 2000
Mr. Showbiz
"Great Scott! Dougray Teams With Mendes"
Dougray Scott didn't get to play Wolverine in X-Men — the role that's made Aussie Hugh Jackman a breakout star — but he's still keeping busy.

The Scottish-born Scott, who lost out on the role due to delays on Mission: Impossible 2 and a shoulder injury from the film's stunts — just finished up the spy film Enigma with Kate Winslet and will star in a play for Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes. Not too shabby, that.

Mendes, the renowned theater director who snagged an Oscar his first time out for American Beauty, will direct Scott in To the Green Fields and Beyond, which will run this fall at Donmar Warehouse in London, Variety reports.

Instead of following up his Oscar sweep with another film, Mendes opted to return to Donmar, where he's the artistic director and where his The Blue Room was a smash, thanks to Nicole Kidman's literally naked performance.

Green Fields revolves around a British tank corps fighting in France during WWI. Scott has signed on to play the role of Lt. Child. Rehearsals begin Wednesday, and the play will open in late September and run through Nov. 25.

Scott, like Mendes, is still considering his next film. Mendes has been working closely with Get Shorty scribe Scott Frank in developing the thriller The Lookout at DreamWorks, but he is otherwise unattached to the project, according to Variety.

August 1, 2000
Popcorn
"Movie Stars Flock To West End"
Following last week's announcement that Oscar-winning actress Jessica Lange is to appear in London's West End in a production of the Eugene O'Neill classic 'Long Day's Journey Into Night', Popcorn can reveal two more actors about to slap on the greasepaint.

The most surprising is Brendan Fraser, who will star in a Bill Kenwright production of 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' next year. Cinema audiences used to seeing Fraser being chased around Egypt by a centuries-old madman in 'The Mummy' may be surprised by his appearance in a sex-charged Tennessee Williams play. Well, so are we.

Fraser's 'Mummy' co-star, Rachel Weisz, has already appeared in a Williams play in the West End, starring in 'Suddenly Last Summer' last year.

'M:I-2' star Dougray Scott will also be treading the boards. The Scot will team up with 'American Beauty' director Sam Mendes and hard man Ray Winstone for 'To The Green Fields And Beyond'. The play, about a British tank corps fighting in France during World War II, will play at the Donmar Warehouse from late September.

"American Beauty" director Sam Mendes has set Dougray Scott to star in "To the Green Fields and Beyond," a play to run this fall at Donmar Warehouse in London.

While Hollywood has been wondering what Mendes will do for his second film since his first won several Oscars, Mendes decided early on that he would first do a play at the Donmar Warehouse, where he's the artistic director. In his last project there, he directed "The Blue Room" with Nicole Kidman. Mendes had been expected to mount a production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," but changed his mind when he came across Nick Whitby's "Green Fields" play, which revolves around a British tank corps fighting in France during WWI.

Scott, who last played the villain in "Mission: Impossible 2," has signed on to play the role of Lt. Child, with Ray Winstone ("Nil by Mouth") also expected to star in the production. Rehearsals begin Wednesday, and the play will open in late September and run through Nov. 25. While "The Blue Room" was hatched at Donmar and played Broadway, it's unclear whether this one would cross the pond as well.

Scott, who, like Mendes, is looking at several possibilities for his next film, recently completed starring with Kate Winslet and Saffron Burrows in "Enigma," the Michael Apted-directed drama produced by Mick Jagger. His last stint on the London stage came in 1993 in "Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love."

Mendes has not committed to his next film project, though he has been working closely with "Get Shorty" scribe Scott Frank in developing "The Lookout," an original thriller by Frank, at DreamWorks. Scott's repped stage deal was made by PFD and UTA.

July 31, 2000
E! Online
Dotted Line
Mission: Impossible 2 baddie Dougray Scott and American Beauty's Oscar-winning director, Sam Mendes, are heading To the Green Fields and Beyond. Mendes, who got his start as a stage director, will return to the theater to helm the play about British tank corps in France during World War I. Scott is set to star as the commander. Mendes has slated rehearsals for next week, with the production opening in late September at London's Donmar Warehouse.

July 21, 2000
Ananova
"Actor abandons hardman image for Mendes play"
Actor Ray Winstone will swap his hardman image for that of a caring soldier in Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes's next play at his London theatre.

The 43-year-old actor, whose gritty films include Scum and Nil By Mouth, will play a brave and sensitive lance corporal in the wartime drama To the Green Fields Beyond at the Donmar Warehouse.

He will be joined by a host of younger actors, including Hugh Dancy, who played David Copperfield in the BBC adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic last Christmas.

A spokeswoman said: "The play is an ensemble piece set among a tank unit on the eve of the First World War, so there are no main characters as such.

"Ray's character is quite different from anything he has done before. He's basically a very good man."

Mendes found worldwide fame earlier this year after his debut movie, American Beauty, won a clutch of Oscars, including the best director and best film categories.

But his first love has always been the theatre, and after scooping his awards he made it clear he would be returning to the Donmar, where he is artistic director.

Hollywood star Nicole Kidman helped give the Donmar an international profile two years ago when she stripped naked in its acclaimed production of The Blue Room.

To the Green Fields Beyond, written by Nick Whitby, is due to be previewed at the Donmar from September 14 before opening on September 25.

July 2, 2000
About British Theatre
"Mendes announces Green Fields casting"
Sam Mendes has announced that the lead for his first Donmar production since winning his Oscar, Nick Whitby's To the Green Fields Beyond, will be Ray Winstone. The play, which replaces Mendes' planned production of Twelfth Night, will run from 25th September to 25th November, previewing from 14th September.

June 16, 2000
Ananova
"Winstone and Mendes team up in West End"
Screen actor Ray Winstone has turned down several lucrative film offers to appear in a £300-a-week theatre job at the Donmar Warehouse in September.

Mendes believes Nick Whitby's To The Green Fields Beyond, is one of the best plays he has ever read.

Winstone, whose recent movies include Nil By Mouth, The War Zone and Love, Honour and Obey, has never appeared in the West End before, although he has been in plays at the National and the Royal Court.

May 17, 2000
Ananova
"Sam Mendes gets back to his first love"
Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes will return to the theatre in September to stage a new play about tank crews in the 1914-18 war.

To The Green Field Beyond is by a little-known young writer, Nick Whitby, whose previous work includes Dirty Dishes, about illegal workers at a pizza restaurant.

It is a surprise choice for Mendes, artistic director of the 250-seat Donmar Warehouse, who had pencilled in Twelfth Night for the slot to be occupied by Whitby's play.

"One must take advantage of good and exciting new plays because they don't arrive every day," Mendes tells the Standard.

Despite countless offers to direct films after his Oscar triumph, 34-year-old Mendes has put his film career on hold until 2001.

May 5, 2000
TheatreNet
Backstage Whispers overheard by Richard Andrews
Sam Mendes has changed his mind about which play he will direct at Donmar Warehouse Theatre in September. He has been so impressed by a new play by little known writer Nick Whitby, To The Green Fields Beyond, about a First World war tank crew on the eve of battle, that he has postponed the planned production of Twelfth Night. The full cast of Donmar's next production, Orpheus Descending directed by Nicholas Hytner, is Helen Mirren, Stuart Townsend, Saskia Reeves, Sandra Dickinson, William Hootkins, Tom Husinger, Kristin Marks, Jason Salkey, Lolli Susi and Julia Swift.