Red Speedo kicks off Auckland Theatre Company’s (ATC) 25^th anniversary season with a family torn apart by ambition, drugs and the taste of superstardom. Chelsie Preston Crayford (Angels in America, Underbelly, The Inland Road) stars in this compelling drama, playing at the ASB Waterfront Theatre from late October.

Poolside. Somewhere in America. Ray is a lean, mean swimming machine who has beaten both Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. A month before the Olympics, he seems certain to win and destined for superstardom. But when performance-enhancing drugs are discovered in the team locker room, he is implicated in a scandal that could destroy his dreams and tear his family apart. With so much at stake, how far will he go to get what he wants?

Chelsie Preston-Crayford plays Ray’s ex-girlfriend, Lydia, a disgraced sports therapist.  She makes her splash clashing over desires and values.

Performing alongside Preston-Crayford is Ryan Carter (Shortland Street, Power Rangers) who is coming home from Sydney to play Ray, the ambitious athlete with an Olympic dream.  Ryan is currently preparing his physique and psyche to play a competitive swimmer.

Rounding out the formidable cast is Wesley Dowdell (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Outrageous Fortune, Once on Chunuk Bair) and Scott Wills (To Kill A Mockingbird, The Light Between Oceans, Dirty Laundy) who will both make their ASB Waterfront Theatre debut with this terrifically poignant and relevant drama.

Red Speedo brings together some of the most exciting creatives in Auckland; director Benjamin Henson (The Effect, Twelfth Night, Not Psycho, Titus), designer John Parker (The Importance of Being Earnest, The Glass Menagarie) and sound designer Eden Mulholland (August Osage County, The Importance of Being Earnest, Stepping Out).

American writer Lucas Hnath has been crowned as “one of the brightest new voices of his generation” by the New York Times. Winner of the Best New American Play at OBIE Awards 2016, this taut drama questions our sense of morality with Hnath’s bold and brilliant writing, which has been compared to the likes of David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross).

Thrilling, dark and dangerous, Red Speedo transforms one man’s near-naked ambition into a parable for a modern age obsessed with sex, sport and celebrity, where virtue has no value and the only crime is getting caught.

The play runs 31 October to 15 November at the ASB Waterfront Theatre in Wynyard Quarter.

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