Nathalie Harrison, a dancer with The Royal Ballet for close to 20 years, steps into the role of The Swan opposite Jesse Tyler Ferguson in Tru from 27 October, staying with the production until it closes at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
Nathalie Harrison takes over as The Swan in Tru at the Menier Chocolate Factory from 27 October, and will play the part for the rest of the run. She follows Charlotte d'Amboise, who has been with the company since previews began on 19 September and gives her last performance on Sunday 25 October.
The change completes a two-hander. Harrison is now the only performer billed alongside Jesse Tyler Ferguson, whose Truman Capote is the centre of the evening, while associate director Kate Tydman remains the walking cover for The Swan.
Harrison comes to the play from dance. Her career with The Royal Ballet, which ran for almost two decades, took her through classical and contemporary repertoire on major international stages, and since leaving the company she has built a second career as a creative producer, movement director and actor across theatre, concerts, film and live performance. She first acted on stage in 2012, in the National Theatre's Timon of Athens, directed by Nick Hytner and starring Simon Russell Beale, and in 2025 she produced the premiere of Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet, created with orchestrator Rachel Fuller and Pete Townshend.
D'Amboise had been part of this staging from the start: she, Ferguson and director Rob Ashford first worked on it together in March at the House of the Redeemer's library in New York, and her casting for London was announced in September.
Jay Presson Allen's play, first seen in 1989, is assembled entirely from Capote's own words. It finds him at home in New York in December 1975, isolated after a published excerpt from his unfinished novel Answered Prayers turned the society friends he prized against him. Ferguson, who won a Tony Award for Take Me Out and played Mitchell Pritchett for eleven seasons of Modern Family, opened in the role at the Menier on 27 September; what the critics made of it is gathered in our review roundup.
Ashford's creative team is Paul Farnsworth (set), Jaimal Odedra (costumes), Jamie Platt (lighting) and Adam Cork (sound). The Menier presents the production in association with Seaview, OHenry Productions, Mickey Liddell & Pete Shilaimon and A Kid Named Beckett Productions.
Tru runs at the Menier Chocolate Factory until Saturday 14 November 2026, with performances Tuesday to Saturday at 7.30pm and weekend matinees at 3pm. The play lasts 90 minutes without an interval.
