Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California is currently playing at the Broadhurst Theatre and we have an exclusive clip from the show.
Directed by Sam Mendes (who also helmed Butterworth’s family drama The Ferryman), it’s about three sisters who have returned to their childhood home in Blackpool to be with their mother in her final days. They are haunted by their memories of the girl group they formed when they were young, and their estranged fourth sister.
The cast is led by Olivier Award winner Laura Donnelly, with Leanne Best, Ophelia Lovibond, Helena Wilson, Nancy Allsop, Sophia Ally, Lara McDonnell, and Nicola Turner, who also appeared in the show’s premiere in the West End.
Watch the sisters trying cigarettes for the first time in a scene:
The full ensemble includes Bryan Dick, Richard Short, David Wilson Barnes, Richard Lumsden, Ta’Rea Campbell, Sawyer Barth, Ellyn Heald, Cameron Scoggins, and Max Roll. The company understudies are Erin Rose Doyle, Sadie Veach, Liz Pearce, Jessica Baglow, Liam Bixby, and Q. Smith.
The creative team for The Hills of California includes Rob Howell (scenic and costume design), Natasha Chivers (lighting design), Nick Powell (composer, sound design and arrangements), Ellen Kane (choreography), and Candida Caldicot (musical supervision and arrangements).
Our critic called it “a delicate heartbreaker of a family drama,” saying it was his “favorite Jez Butterworth play yet, and that’s saying something.”