Sir Samuel Alexander Mendes CBE (born 1 August 1965) is an English film and stage director, producer and screenwriter. In theatre, he is known for his dark re-inventions of the stage musicals Cabaret (1994), Oliver! (1994), Company (1995), and Gypsy (2003). He directed an original West End stage musical for the first time with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2013).
For directing the play The Ferryman, Mendes was awarded the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play in 2019.
Defeated by Dashed Career Dreams, Jackie Van Beek Takes on Daughter’s Identity in ‘Audrey’ – SXSW Trailer Drop
variety.comPatrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief New Zealand’s funniest export Jackie Van Beek ( (“Nude Tuesday,” “What We Do in the Shadows”) returns to SXSW atop the cast of “Audrey,” an Australian dark comedy that is headed to SXSW.
Van Beek, whose 2018 “The Breaker Upperers,” was a previous SXSW hit, portrays a forgotten former soap star whose career and life have been derailed by motherhood and suburban boredom.
But when an accident puts her 18-year-old child in a coma, the woman takes on her daughter’s identity and gets a second chance at the life she actually wanted.
Other cast also include: Jeremy Lindsay Taylor (“Puberty Blues,” “The Diplomat”), Josephine Blazier (“True History of the Kelly Gang”) and disability advocate and actress Hannah Diviney (“Latecomers”). “What begins as a light, sex-fuelled comedy about family soon takes a twisted journey into horror as, like a classic Greek tragedy, our protagonists decide that the only way to find happiness is to destroy their firstborn,” says director Natalie Bailey.
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