Claire Foy and Matt Smith are going back to the theater from a safe, social distance this June.
The former “Crown” castmates will perform Duncan Macmillan’s stage play “Lungs,” which is ironically all about a couple fighting over whether or not to bring up a child while the world is in shambles, at London’s Old Vic Theatre. The plan is for them to perform the play live as they would for normal performances, but standing 2 meters apart from each other in front of an empty theater. The performances will be live-streamed to up to 1,000 ticketed guests.
The pair have starred together in “Lungs” together before, and were scheduled to bring the play to BAM in New York this spring before the coronavirus foiled those plans
The socially-distanced performances, the first of their kind, are part of the Old Vic: In Camera artistic initiative which will combines the performances of “Lungs” with a set of rehearsed play-readings also to be live-streamed from the 202-year-old stage of the Old Vic.
“This series is both an exciting creative experiment and also crucial in igniting the box office now all our usual channels of revenue have been entirely wiped out and we fight to preserve this beloved theatre for our audiences, surrounding schools and communities, staff, crew, and the myriad of writers, performers and creatives that work with us,” reads a statement on the Old Vic website.
1,000 tickets will be available for each live stream for between £10-£65, with audience members being asked to give what they can within that range to support the theater. There will also be some matinee performances.