The first UK production in over 25 years

In a production commissioned for the Finborough Theatre, the first UK production in over 25 years of Veterans Day by multi-award-winning American playwright Donald Freed plays for nine Sunday and Monday evenings and Tuesday matinees from Sunday, 8 January 2017

Three American war veterans meet at a Veterans Administration Hospital just before a remembrance ceremony – Private Leslie R. Holloway, shell-shocked in the First World War; John MacCormick Butts, a veteran of the Second World War; and Colonel Walter Kercelik, the most highly decorated soldier of the Vietnam War. Three very different wars – and each man has a horror story locked inside him. Two of them are about to be honoured, but one has an altogether more sinister agenda… Using war songs from across the twentieth century, Veterans Day is a story of three soldiers from three wars, still traumatised by their military service. As the men share their memories with each other, they begin to fully comprehend how their experiences of combat have changed their lives forever.

Originally produced in Denver and Los Angeles, Veterans Day was last seen in the UK at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, in 1989, with Jack Lemmon, Michael Gambon and Robert Flemyng.

Playwright Donald Freed has been writing for the theatre since 1960. His work has been performed in theatres across America and in the UK, Ireland, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Hungary. His plays include Secret Honor (Los Angeles Theatre Center and Provincetown Playhouse, New York), Circe and Bravo, directed by Harold Pinter, and starring Faye Dunaway (Denver Theatre Center, Hampstead Theatre and Wyndham’s Theatre, London), Quartered Man (Los Angeles Theater Center and Shaw Theatre, London), The Last Hero (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), Alfred and Victoria (Los Angeles Theatre Center, Wilma Theater, Philadelphia, and Japan), American Iliad (Victory Theatre, Los Angeles), Is He Still Dead? (Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven), Devil’s Advocate (Mercury Theatre Colchester, Los Angeles Theatre Center and the Edinburgh Festival) and The White Crow: Eichmann in Jerusalem (Los Angeles Theatre Center, Milwaukee Repertory, HB Studio New York and Theatre Royal York). His play Secret Honor was made into an award-winning film, directed by Robert Altman in 1984. Donald is the recipient of the PEN Prize for Drama, the Pinter Prize, the Unicorn Prize, the Berlin Critics Prize, the Louis B Mayer Award, the Hollywood Critics Award, the Gold Medal Award and the John Larkin Award. He is currently Playwright-in-Residence at the Theatre Royal York and the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Donald was previously Guest Artist at the University of Leeds and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow.

Director Hannah Boland Moore trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. She has directed The One by Vicky Jones (Lion and Unicorn Theatre), the English-language premiere of Belgian play The Broken Circle Breakdown by Johan Heldenbergh and Mieke Dobbels (Karamel Club), the world premiere of Confetti by Tim Foley (LOST Theatre) and As You Like It (Royal Shakespeare Company Open Stages). At the Finborough Theatre, she was Assistant Director on It Is Easy To Be Dead. Hannah has also worked as Text Assistant to the Master of Words at Shakespeare’s Globe on The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, King John, Richard II and Measure for Measure.

Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED

Box Office 0844 847 1652

Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24 January 2017 Sunday and Monday evenings at 7.30pm.

Tuesday matinees at 2.00pm.

Tickets £18, £16 concessions