The Young Vic Theatre and LIFT have announced that tickets for 24-hour show The Second Woman starring Golden Globe and Olivier Award winner Ruth Wilson will go on priority sale on Thursday 2 March, and on general sale on Monday 6 March at 12pm.
Wilson will be acting a single, seven-minute scene on a loop in which she will perform the same scene repeatedly for 24 hours straight.
She will be playing Virginia alongside her lover Marty and the production will also include 100 men exploring gender roles.
Wilson called her upcoming role as “extraordinary, once in a lifetime experience” and an “endurance test”.
Who is Ruth Wilson?
Wilson is a British actress with an impressive resume and acting accolades.
She has won two Laurence Olivier awards for performances on London’s West End stage – best actress for Anna Christie opposite Jude Law and supporting actress for A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Rachel Weisz.
She is also a two-time Tony Award nominee and won a Golden Globe for her role in The Affair and also for her performance in Jane Eyre.
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
Ruth Wilson’s early life
Wilson was born on January 13, 1982 in Ashford, Surrey and is the daughter of Nigel Wilson, an investment banker, and wife, Mary Metson, a probation officer.
She attended Notre Dame School in Cobham before attending sixth form at Esher College, later studying history at the University of Nottingham.
As a teenager, Wilson worked as a model but caught the acting bug while involved in student drama at the Nottingham New Theatre.
After graduating from Nottingham, Wilson attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
Ruth Wilson’s early career
Wilson’s first acting work was in a situation comedy called Suburban Shootout (2006), in which she appeared alongside Tom Hiddleston.
This was followed by performances in Jane Eyre (2006), as Alice Morgan in the BBC television psychological crime drama Luther (2010), Anna Karenina (2012), The Lone Ranger (2013) and Saving Mr Banks (2013), Locke (2013) and The Affair (2014).
Wilson spoke to the Guardian about her upcoming gruelling performance at the Young Vic.
She said: “I’m curious about putting myself in scenarios that I have no idea how to anticipate. I don’t know how I’m going to get through it but that excites me in some way. It’s like nothing else I’ll ever do again or I’ve ever done. It’s an extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
The Second Woman, a Young Vic & Lift co-production in association with Ruth Wilson, is at the Young Vic, London over May 19-20.
