RSC announces casting for new play Kyoto

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Good Chance have unveiled the full casting for the world premiere of Kyoto, based on the historic 1997 Kyoto climate summit.

Premiering in the Swan Theatre from 18 June to 13 July 2024, the political thriller reunites the creative team behind the multi award-winning hit The Jungle which began life in the refugee camps of Calais in 2015 and became a sell-out hit in the UK and internationally.

Written by Good Chance co-founders Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson and directed by Stephen Daldry (Stranger Things: The First Shadow, The Inheritance) and Justin Martin (Stranger Things: The First Shadow, Prima Facie), Kyoto recounts a tense negotiation which led up to the historic signing of the UN’s landmark climate conference in December 1997.

Making his RSC debut in the role of American oil lobbyist and master strategist is Tony award-nominated actor Stephen Kunken (Enron, Frost/Nixon), joined by Jenna Augen (Shirley Pearlman), Jorge Bosch (Argentinian ambassador Raul Estrada Oyuela), Vincent Franklin (Fred Singer), Dale Rapley (Bert Bolin) and Olivia Barrowclough (Secretariat).

Completing the cast are Andrea Gatchalian as Kiribati / AOSIS, Raad Rawi as Mohammad Al Sabban / OPEC, Kwong Loke as Professor Shukong Zhong / China, Nancy Crane as USA/Wirth/Eisenstat, Ingrid Oliver as Angela Merkel / Germany, Jude Akuwudike as Professor Mark Mwandosya / Tanzania, Ferdy Roberts as UK/Prescott/Houghton and Togo Igawa as Hiroshi Ohki / Japan.

RSC’s co-artistic directors, Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, said today: “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.”

Murphy and Robertson explained: “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.”

The full creative team includes Miriam Buether (set designer), Natalie Pryce (costume designer) Aideen Malone (lighting designer), Christopher Reid (sound designer), Akhila Krishnan (video designer), Gemma Stockwood (dramaturg) and Julia Horan CDG (casting director).