Sam Mendes' Bridge Project Delayed as Stephen Dillane Withdraws

The Bridge Project, the international collaboration between New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music BAM and London's Old Vic, set up by director Sam Mendes with the intention of producing classical work, has been delayed.

As previously reported, the three-year venture would kick off later this year, featuring Mendes collaborating with actor Stephen Dillane on productions of The Tempest and Hamlet, with the productions scheduled to reach the Old Vic in May 2008. However, it has now been formally announced that the project will start instead in the autumn of 2008 with productions of A Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard, which will reunite Mendes with actor Simon Russell Beale. Beale will play Leontes and Lopahkin, respectively. These productions will begin rehearsals in New York in October 2008 and open at BAM in January 2009. They will make international visits before arriving at the Old Vic in the summer of 2009.

According to a press statement, the Mendes/Dillane collaboration has been postponed following Dillane's withdrawal, "due to personal reasons arising from family reasons." The statement went on to say, "The producers of The Bridge Project accept his decision with great sympathy and look forward to the future date when his partnership with Mendes in this venture will be resumed."