Francesca Amewudah-Rivers | |
|---|---|
 Amewudah-Rivers in 2024 | |
| Born | 1998 (age 26) [1] [2] Brighton, England |
| Education | Oxford University |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 2021–present |
Francesca Amewudah-Rivers is a British television and stage actress, musician and composer. She made her West End debut opposite Tom Holland in 2024 as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet . [3]
Amewudah-Rivers was born in Brighton to a Ghanaian father and Nigerian mother. [4] [5] She trained at the National Youth Theatre [6] and studied Music at Oxford University. [7]
She appeared in two seasons of the BBC sitcom Bad Education as Blessing, alongside Jack Whitehall. [8] She also composed the music for the short films Medea, Minutes and Messenger. [9] She was awarded the 2021 Evening Standard Future Theatre Award for Audio Design. She was a music intern on Inua Ellams’ adaptation of Chekhov's play Three Sisters for the Royal National Theatre. [5]
On stage, she has appeared in theatre productions of Shakespeare's MacBeth and Othello at the National Youth Theatre, [10] [11] as well an adaptation of Sophocles' Greek tragedy Antigone at the Mercury Theatre, [12] for which The Guardian positively reviewed her "sensitively delivered" performance. [13]
In 2024, she was cast in her first West End production as Juliet alongside Tom Holland in Romeo and Juliet at the Duke of York's Theatre. [14]
She is a classical and jazz pianist who also plays guitar, bassoon and djembe drum. While studying music at Oxford, she struggled with feeling alienated for being the only black person in her college year group. [5] She resides in Brixton. [15]
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.
Antigone is an Athenian tragedy written by Sophocles in 441 BC and first performed at the Festival of Dionysus of the same year. It is thought to be the second oldest surviving play of Sophocles, preceded by Ajax, which was written around the same period. The play is one of a triad of tragedies known as the three Theban plays, following Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus. Even though the events in Antigone occur last in the order of events depicted in the plays, Sophocles wrote Antigone first. The story expands on the Theban legend that predates it, and it picks up where Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes ends. The play is named after the main protagonist Antigone.
Olivia Hussey is a British-Argentine film, stage, and television actress. Her awards include a Golden Globe Award and a David di Donatello Award. The daughter of Argentine opera singer Andrés Osuna, Hussey was born in Buenos Aires but spent most of her early life in her mother's native England. She aspired to become an actress at a young age and studied drama for five years at Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London.
Francesca Annis is an English actress. She is known for television roles in Reckless (1998), Wives and Daughters (1999), Deceit (2000), and Cranford (2007). A six-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won the 1979 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the ITV serial Lillie. Her film appearances include Krull (1983), Dune (1984), The Debt Collector (1999), and The Libertine (2004).
Juliet Capulet is the female protagonist in William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet. A 13-year-old girl, Juliet is the only daughter of the patriarch of the House of Capulet. She falls in love with the male protagonist Romeo, a member of the House of Montague, with which the Capulets have a blood feud. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself.
Declan Michael Martin Donnellan is an English film/stage director and author. He co-founded the Cheek by Jowl theatre company with Nick Ormerod in 1981. In addition to his Cheek by Jowl productions, Donnellan has made theatre, opera and ballet with a variety of companies across the world. In 1992, he received an honorary degree from the University of Warwick and in 2004 he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in France. In 2010, he was made an honorary fellow of Goldsmiths' College, University of London. Donnellan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to theatre.
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Leonard Whiting is a British semi-retired actor and singer best known for his teenage role as Romeo in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet, a role which earned him the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor in 1969.
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Richard Challoner School is an all boys secondary school with a mixed sixth form that is federated with Holy Cross School, New Malden. It has academy status and is in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. The school is named after Bishop Richard Challoner.
The Ian Charleson Awards are theatrical awards that reward the best classical stage performances in Britain by actors under age 30. The awards are named in memory of the British actor Ian Charleson, and are run by the Sunday Times newspaper and the National Theatre. The awards were established in 1990 after Charleson's death, and have been awarded annually since then. Sunday Times theatre critic John Peter (1938–2020) initiated the creation of the awards, particularly in memory of Charleson's extraordinary Hamlet, which he had performed shortly before his death. Recipients receive a cash prize, as do runners-up and third-place winners.
Juliet van Kampen Rylance is an English actress and producer, known for her roles in The Knick, McMafia and Perry Mason.
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Ivo van Hove is a Belgian theatre director known as the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Netherlands and for his Off-Broadway avant-garde experimental theatre productions. On Broadway, he has directed revival productions of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, and The Crucible, Lee Hall's Network in 2018, and Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story in 2020. Among his numerous awards he has received a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award for A View from the Bridge. He was made a Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2004, and a Commander in the Order of the Crown in 2016.
Polly Findlay is a British theatre director, who won the Olivier for Best Entertainment in 2011 for Derren Brown's Svengali. She has directed seven productions for the National Theatre, and four for the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she is an associate artist.
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& Juliet is a 2019 coming-of-age jukebox musical featuring the music of Swedish pop songwriter Max Martin, with a book by David West Read. The story focuses on a "what if" scenario, where Juliet does not die at the end of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
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Actors have condemned the ongoing racist abuse of 26-year-old Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, who is soon to star alongside Tom Holland in a London production of Romeo and Juliet, in an open letter.