Francesca Moody Productions has added seven more names to the guest line-up for An Oak Tree at The Other Palace, where a different actor takes the second role at every performance without having read or rehearsed a word of it.
Juliet Stevenson will walk on to the stage of The Other Palace on 18 October to perform a play she will not have read. She is one of seven actors added today to the guest line-up for An Oak Tree, Tim Crouch's two-hander for Francesca Moody Productions, which runs from Wednesday 7 October to Sunday 15 November 2026.
The casting is the production. One role belongs to Crouch; the other goes to a different performer every night, and that performer arrives having neither read the script nor rehearsed it. Olivia Williams takes 10 October, Rhashan Stone 11 October, Sophie Melville 25 October, Sean Gilder 27 October, Brian Gleeson 30 October and Ria Zmitrowicz 8 November.
Stevenson's credits include the title role in The Doctor at the Almeida, in the West End and in New York. Williams's include One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the Old Vic Theatre, and Stone's Ghosts at the Lyric Hammersmith. Melville's stage work includes Iphigenia in Splott and Clarkston at the Trafalgar Theatre, Gilder's Dear England at the National Theatre, and Gleeson's The Brightening Air at the Old Vic. Zmitrowicz's include Ilford Boy at the Donmar Warehouse.
They join the eight guest artists named in August: Rosalie Craig on 9 October, Clare Perkins on 13 October, Tom Mothersdale on 14 October, Gemma Whelan on 15 October, Bessie Carter on 16 October, Sacha Dhawan on 23 October, Hammed Animashaun on 29 October and George Fouracres on 10 November.
Since its premiere in 2005 the play has been given hundreds of times in more than 19 countries, and more than 350 performers have taken that second role. The roll call includes Frances McDormand, Peter Dinklage, Jessie Buckley, David Tennant, Sharon D Clarke, Christopher Eccleston, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Michelle Terry.
Crouch directs with Karl James and Andy Smith. The music is by Pete Gill, with Simon Crane at the piano, and the casting director is Naomi Downham. Press night is 7 October.
The run is part of Francesca Moody Productions' season at The Other Palace, which stretches from 5 October 2026 to 10 January 2027 and also brings Garry Starr: Classic Penguins from 22 October 2026 to 3 January 2027 and Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen from 19 November 2026 to 10 January 2027. Twenty tickets at £20 are held for every performance across the season.
An Oak Tree is booking now, with tickets from £20.
