Further casting announced for FENCES
Shehrazade Zafar-Arif
21 July, 2026, 14:37
Theatre company Headlong have announced further casting for their new production of August Wilson's Fences, touring the UK this autumn.
Photo provided by production
August Wilson's landmark 1985 play, set in the 1950s, is the sixth installment in his ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle, exploring the evolving African-American experience in the face of race relations. In Fences, Troy Maxson, a 53-year-old African American working class man, has cheated death once, but the past keeps closing in. On Pittsburgh's streets, he cracks jokes and spins stories, while at home, his wife Rose struggles to hold the family together. On the precipice of a changing world, she hopes that their son Corey will experience the freedom that his father never had. But when dreams collide and tempers flare, the family spirals towards a reckoning that could reshape everything they know.
Fences won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1987 Tony Award for Best Play, and was adapted into a 2016 film starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. This brand new production is directed by the award-winning Daniel Bailey (Red Pitch, West End), and will be the first major revival in over a decade.
Simon-Anthony Rhoden (Gone - ITV, The Harder They Come - Stratford East) will join the company as Gabriel with Everal A Walsh (Small Island - UK tour, Through It All Together - Leeds Playhouse) as Jim Bono. They join the previously announced Ray Fearon (Othello - RSC, Fleabag - BBC, Coronation Street - ITV) as Troy, Madeline Appiah (In the Long Run - Sky, The Winter’s Tale - RSC, Tina Turner The Musical - West End) as Rose, Michael Ahomka-Lindsay (Choir Boy - Theatre Royal Stratford East & Bristol Old Vic, Cabaret - Kit Kat Club, Playhouse Theatre) as Lyons and Josh Tedeku (Boarders - BBC, Supacell - Netflix) as Cory.
The creative team for Fences includes Set & Costume Designer Lily Arnold, Composer and Sound Designer Khalil Madovi, Lighting Designer Jai Morjaria, Movement Director Shelley Maxwell, Fight Director Kev McCurdy, Design Associate Emily King, Casting Director Heather Basten CDG, Voice and Dialect Aundrea Fudge and Associate Director Amber Ruby.
Fences will embark on a UK tour this autumn, playing in Leeds, Oxford, London, Manchester, Nottingham. Its London run will play at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre from 6 to 31 October.
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