Could you ever fall for a goat? Let Pick Me Up’s next show take that question further

Mick Liversidge, back left, Bryan Bounds, back right, Susannah Baines and Will Fealy in the rehearsal room for Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?

YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre will stage the northern UK premiere of Edward Albee’s emotional rollercoaster of an American play, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, next month.

World-famous New York architect Martin Gray has it all: fame, fortune, a happy marriage to Stevie, and a wonderful son, Billy, but he is hiding a BIG secret. Everything changes when he admits to his best friend, Ross, that he is having an affair with…a goat.

Bryan Bounds, left, Mick Liversidge and Will Fealy in rehearsal for The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?

The Goat caused controversy but was a hit with audiences when it opened on Broadway in 2002, going on to win the Tony Award for Best Play, 40 years after Albee took home the same award for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? 

The tone switches between laugh-out-loud comedy and full-blown tragedy as Stevie, Billy and Ross struggle to deal with Martin’s revelation.

Albee said: “The play is about love and loss, the limits of our tolerance and who, indeed, we really are. All I ask of an audience is that they leave their prejudices in the cloakroom … and later — at home — imagine themselves as being in the predicament the play examines and coming up with useful, if not necessarily comfortable, responses.”

Pick Me Up Theatre cast members Bryan Bounds, left, Will Fealy and Susannah Baines. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

​Directed by Mark Hird and produced and designed by Robert Readman, Pick Me Up’s production features Bryan Bounds as Martin; Susannah Baines as Stevie; Mick Liversidge as Ross and Will Fealy, a student at CAPA College, the creative and performing arts college in Wakefield, as Billy.

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, will run at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41Monkgate, York, from February 25 to 29, 7.30pm nightly. Box office: 01904 623568 or at pickmeuptheatre.com. Please note: this play contains adult themes and strong language; suggested minimum age of 15.