THIRTEEN actors, 13 chairs, one bare stage and two rehearsals are the logistics behind Sunday night’s rehearsed reading of Shakespeare’s Antony And Cleopatra in aid of the York Theatre Royal redevelopment fund.

Director and actor George Costigan assembled his cast for the first time at the Arts Theatre in London last Sunday, having travelled from his home of 24 years in France on Friday the 13th. “I’m not worried about unlucky 13,” he said ahead of his journey.

He was focused instead on preparing the one-off performance for the York stage, having done a similar exercise at the Theatre Royal when Freddie Jones, Toby Jones, Niamh Cusack and Paterson Joseph were among the company assembled for King Lear in 2010.

This time, there have been changes to the originally announced cast, with Danny Miller joining Owen Teale and Hugh Fraser in having to drop out, now replaced by Theatre Royal pantomime villain David Leonard, Richard Howard, Will Will Postlethwaite and George himself.

“There have been some hoops jumped through, but we’re all here now. We rehearse in London for one day, then we do a dress rehearsal and tech in York on Sunday before the evening’s reading,” he says, “It was such a rich experience last time when we did King Lear that we were very keen to do another reading, and for the actors it’s a completely different experience from rehearsing for a full-scale production, though it’s not that different from rehearsing a radio play. So I have seven or eight hours to work with them, and only if they go wildly off-track will I go ‘woe’!”

George says actors have two tools: their voice and their body: “If you take their body out of it, in a reading, we will concentrate on the voice, but I think it’s only respectful to approach the performance as you would approach any full-scale production in the world.”

At the core of his rehearsed reading will be the partnership of Paterson Joseph and Niamh Cusack as Antony and Cleopatra.

“After directing King Lear in 2010, I thought Paterson and Niamh would be fantastic as Antony and Cleopatra, so when Damian Cruden, artistic director at the theatre, suggested another rehearsed reading to raise money for the £4.1 million redevelopment, I instantly suggested it,” says George.

“When we did King Lear, I phoned Niamh at the last minute to do Goneril as I’d just done a film with her, and though I’d seen her in a couple of things, I’d no idea she had so much oomph and power, and I said to her, ‘you should play Cleopatra’.”

Roll forward to 2015 and the Irish actress is indeed taking that role in York.

“I’ve never played her on stage, though I would love to,” says Niamh. “My sister Sinead played her about ten years ago at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and about 30 years ago my sister Sorcha appeared in Antony And Cleopatra, also at the RSC.

“Even if I don’t ever get to play this role anywhere else, it will be a joy on Sunday because the language is such a delight, and even without costumes, you just allow the language to tell the story. The thing about Shakespeare is that he uses language to describe how someone looks, the world they live in. You get a real sense of the exotic Egyptian world, so you don’t need a set. I know it will be really fun to do.”

Tickets for Sunday’s fundraising gala performance of Shakespeare’s play of power, politics and passion are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk