Noughts & Crosses
By Malorie Blackman
Adapted by Sabrina Mahfouz
Directed by Esther Richardson
Designed by Simon Kenny
Lighting Design 2022 by Ben Cowens
Original Lighting Design by Joshua Drualus Pharo
Music composed by Arun Ghosh
York Theatre Royal, 16-24 September
A new tour of Pilot Theatre’s production Noughts & Crosses, Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s critically acclaimed young adult novel of first love in a dangerous fictional dystopia, opens at York Theatre Royal from 16-24 September.
The production is directed by Pilot Theatre’s Artistic Director Esther Richardson.
Sephy is a Cross and Callum is a Nought. Between Noughts and Crosses there are racial and social divides. A segregated society teeters on a volatile knife edge. As violence breaks out, Sephy and Callum draw closer, but this is a romance that will lead them into terrible danger.
Told from the perspectives of two teenagers, Noughts & Crosses is a captivating love story set in a volatile, racially segregated society and explores the powerful themes of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world.
Noughts & Crosses toured in 2019 as the first co-production between Pilot Theatre, Derby Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and York Theatre Royal who in 2018 formed a new partnership to develop, produce and present theatre for younger audiences.
The Pilot Theatre production was seen by over 30,000 people on tour with 40 per cent of the audience being aged under 20. It went on to win Pilot Theatre the award for Excellence in Touring at the 2019 UK Theatre Awards.
The cast is led by Effie Ansah (The Maladies, Almeida Theatre) and James Arden in their first leading roles as Sephy and Callum; Emma Keele (East is East, Birmingham Rep and National Theatre and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, UK Tour) as Meggie; Nathanial McClosky (Macbeth, Box Clever Theatre) as Jude; Amie Buhari (Flowers, Channel 4) as Jasmine; Steph Asamoah (Billy Eliot, Curve Theatre) as Minerva; Chris Jack (Brighton Rock, Pilot Theatre and York Theatre Royal and Our Town, Royal Exchange Manchester) as Kamal, Daniel Copeland ( Invincible, Orange Tree Theatre and The Jungle Book, Leeds Playhouse) as Ryan and newcomer Tom Coleman as Nought Man, Andrew Dorn and understudy to Callum and Jude. All actors will also play ensemble roles.