12 Angry Men is a drama written by Reginald Rose concerning the deliberations of the jury of a homicide trial. The play, featuring an all-male cast, was adapted by Sherman Sergel and presented in special arrangement with the Dramatic Publishing Company, Woodstock, Illinois. In true CT7 spirit to ‘innovate and surprise’, as well as in the typical twist associated with the dynamic theatre troupe, the production also saw the concurrent staging of 12 Angry Women with an all-female cast.
In 2017, one thing was certain – COLD Theatre 7 was not going to do two consecutive musicals. Hence, it was decided to do a straight play and there were two titles under consideration. One was ‘12 Angry Men’ and the other was ‘The Woman in Black’. ‘12 Angry Men’ had a gripping storyline and the other was a Horror genre. Since ‘12 Angry Men’ was also slanting towards a Murder Mystery genre, Kevin was thinking of something different, and hence, ‘The Woman in Black’ was considered.
Nonetheless, COLD Theatre 7 wanted to try out something different. The troupe wanted to know what the audience and the general theatre goers thought of the options available. So CT7 conducted an online survey requesting the general public to decide what they preferred. The responses were very encouraging and it was interesting to see that most of the individuals who took the survey voted for ’12 Angry Men’ and what was more interesting was the number of females who voted for this title too. Kevin started off doing it differently by getting the audience to decide what they wanted to see and looking at the number of responses, especially from the female population, something else was cooking in Kevin’s head. He decided to continue to do things differently. He announced his next play – ‘12 Angry Men and 12 Angry Women’, thus ensuring that the primarily all-male cast had an all-female version too
The play featured some of the finest Actors and Actresses in the English Theatre industry in Sri Lanka and COLD Theatre 7 was indeed privileged to have them involved in the production.
| Dates | 16 – 19 November 2017 |
| Venue | Lionel Wendt Theatre, Colombo 07 |
| Directed by | Kevin Cruze |
| Juror #1 | Mahesh Senaratne / Neidra Williams |
| Juror #2 | Avishka De Alwis / Celina Cramer-Amit |
| Juror #3 | Amesh De Silva / Shanuki de Alwis |
| Juror #4 | Mohamed Adamaly / Nadishka Aloysius |
| Juror #5 | Rukshan de Soyza / Sashya de Alwis |
| Juror #6 | Jehan Bastians / Shania Smith |
| Juror #7 | Biman Wimalaratne / Saranie Wijesinghe |
| Juror #8 | Anuk De Silva / Bimsara Premaratna |
| Juror #9 | Jerome L. de Silva / Mokshini Jayamanne |
| Juror #10 | Stephan Anoj Wijayaratne / Kavitha Gunesekera |
| Juror #11 | Dulika Jayamanne / Liza De Costa |
| Juror #12 | Heshan Perera / Piorina Fernando |
| Judge | Jehan Aloysius / Tracy Holsinger |
| Assistant | Wasaam Ismail / Mayanthi De Silva |
| Ensemble Cast | Nigel Wayne White, Cassy Rebecca Pinto, Harshana Rathnayake, Hashen Ratnayake & Haseeb Hassen |