Theatre: Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train at HOME

HOME hosts a four-day run of American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train this May. The play premiered in New York in 2000, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and has since been performed at the Donmar Warehouse and Trafalgar Studios in London. Its darkly comic, political storyline focuses on Angel Cruz, who is standing trial for shooting a reverend, and Lucius Jenkins, who is trying to avoid the death penalty for the murder of eight people. The pair begin to talk as they share adjacent cages on Rikers Island in New York for an hour each day. This is the first time one of Pulitzer Prize-winner Guirgis’ works has been performed in Manchester, with the play directed at HOME by Manchester-raised Jake Murray and staged by his Elysium Theatre Company. Its northern premiere will feature Elysium’s lead actor Danny Solomon as Cruz and Faz Singhateh as Jenkins, as well as Alice Frankham, Garth Williams and Alistair Gillies. Murray previously spent several years at the Royal Exchange, where his 2005 production of Romeo and Juliet starred a young Andrew Garfield and broke records for first-time viewers and young audiences.

Wed 16 – Sat 19 May, HOME, 2 Tony Wilson Place, Manchester, M15 4FN, Tel: 0161 200 1500, 7.45pm (plus 2.45pm Sat), £12.50 (£10 concessions), homemcr.org