The Children’s Theatre Partnership (CTP) and Royal & Derngate, Northampton are delighted to announce the full cast of the Nottingham Playhouse production of “HOLES”, written by Louis Sachar and directed by Adam Penford.

The production will open at Royal & Derngate, Northampton on 24 January 2020 before embarking on a UK tour. The tour will visit, Nottingham Playhouse, Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Coventry Belgrade Theatre, Newcastle Theatre Royal, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Liverpool Playhouse, High Wycombe Swan, Norwich Theatre Royal, Wolverhampton Grand Theatre and Canterbury Marlowe Theatre.

The cast includes Harold Addo, Leona Allen, James Backway, Joëlle Brabban, Jeremy Cobb, Rhona Croker, Gracey Davey, John Elkington, Ashley Gayle, Henry Mettle, Matthew Romain and Elizabeth Twells.

Holes will be directed by Nottingham Playhouse’s Artistic Director Adam Penford (“The Madness of George III”, “Enemy of the People” and “Family Business”). The rest of the creative team includes set and costume design by Simon Kenny, lighting design by Prema Mehta and sound design by Adam P McCready. The composer is Tom Attwood, puppetry director and co-designer is Matthew Forbes and choreography is by Emma Annetts. Guy Jones is the Associate Lighting Designer and Meghan Treadway is the Associate Puppet Director. The production is cast by Vicky Richardson.

“HOLES” is an inventive new stage show based on the multi-award-winning novel and blockbuster film of the same name. It is a thrilling off-beat comedy adventure which tells the story of Stanley Yelnats, who is born into a family cursed with bad luck and finds himself accused of a crime he didn’t commit.

Sent to a labour camp as punishment, he is tasked with digging one hole, five-foot wide by five-foot deep, every day. He is told it is to build ‘character’. But the tyrannical Warden is definitely hiding something. How will Stanley and his fellow inmates deal with her demands, her two cronies, plus the fearsome rattlesnakes and yellow-spotted lizards? And will Stanley and his new friends unearth what’s really going on?

“HOLES”, written by Louis Sachar won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal for the year’s most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. Louis also wrote the screenplay for the 2003 film adaptation.

“HOLES” is the first production from CTP since the partnership announced three years of support from Arts Council England. CTP aims to produce new and exciting productions, created for a young and diverse audience. Previous CTP productions include the Olivier award winning “Goodnight Mr Tom”, “Swallows and Amazons”, “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”, Michael Morpurgo’s “Running Wild” and a new adaptation of “The Jungle Book”.

Production Shots of previous cast