Hawke, Cusack, Hall join double bill

Sam Mendes to direct 'Cherry,' 'Winter'

By GORDON COX

Hawke

Ethan Hawke, Sinead Cusack, Richard Easton, Josh Hamilton and Rebecca Hall will join Simon Russell Beale in the acting company for the initial two offerings of the Bridge Project, the series of transatlantic legit co-productions spearheaded by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, London’s Old Vic and Sam Mendes’ Neal Street Prods.

Mendes will direct the cast in a double bill of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” (in a new adaptation by Tom Stoppard) and Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.”

To be rehearsed at BAM this fall, the shows will play the Brooklyn venue January-March, followed by engagements in Singapore, Auckland, Madrid and Germany and then finish with a May-August run at the Old Vic, the U.K. theater where Kevin Spacey is a.d.

Bridge Project, conceived as a three-year series of classical theater double bills that draws on stage talent from both sides of the Pond, was to begin perfs this year. But the endeavor was delayed when thesp Stephen Dillane withdrew from skedded productions of “Hamlet” and “The Tempest” due to an illness in the family.