Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre 2011 Season

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is the only permanent professional outdoor theatre in Britain. Their new 2011 season promises something for everyone with classic plays, Shakespeare and a great big Broadway musical set to break new box-office records at this magical venue.

What’s on at the Open Air Theatre in 2011

Lord of The Flies

19 May – 18 June
William Golding’s classic novel is brought to the stage by the same team as last season’s The Crucible. After a group of schoolboys survive a massive plane crash, what starts as a classic desert island adventure quickly becomes a struggle for survival as superstition and immorality sees the community slide into a darkly sinister world. This production promises to rediscover this gripping drama in the unconfined and atmospheric setting of the open air. Recommended for ages 11+.
Book tickets to Lord of the Flies at the Open Air Theatre

The Beggar’s Opera

23 June – 23 July
Director Lucy Bailey injects her trademark visual dynamism into John Gay’s original text and The City Waites, led by Roddy and Lucy Skeaping, use authentic instruments to recreate the popular ballads and folk tunes of the time. In The Beggar’s Opera a tangled web of lies and deceit blissfully unravels between innocent but feisty heroine Polly Peachum, her wronged rival Lucy Lockit and Macheath, their irrepressible highwayman lover. Set deep in London’s underworld, this comedy of highwaymen, hangmen and harlots is an uncompromising exposure of moral and financial corruption.
Book tickets to The Beggar’s Opera at the Open Air Theatre

Pericles

Re-imagined for everyone ages six and over
02 July – 23 July
Continuing the successful series of Shakespeare plays for younger audiences, and making its first appearance at the Open Air Theatre since 1939, Pericles is re-imagined for everyone aged six and over. The young prince, Pericles, takes to the high seas on a quest to discover the world. An odyssey adventure of shipwrecks, tournaments and of love lost, and found, this is a journey into adulthood and a celebration of family to enjoy together.
Book tickets to Pericles at the Open Air Theatre

Crazy For You

28 July – 10 September
George and Ira Gershwin’s hit musical comedy is packed full of classic songs including “I Got Rhythm”, “Someone To Watch Over Me”, “Embraceable You” and “Nice Work If You Can Get It”. The original 1992 production won both the Tony and Olivier Award for Best New Musical, and the creative team from the Open Air’s multi-award winning production of Hello, Dolly! reunite to bring you a joyous musical treat. The production is led by director Timothy Sheader, choreographer Stephen Mear and designer Peter McKintosh, plus Into the Woods musical supervisor, Gareth Valentine.
Book tickets to Crazy for You at the Open Air Theatre

Me and My Girl to the Shaftesbury?

Casting News: Me and My Girl

Anna Mackmin has announced her cast for the Christmas revival of Me and My Girl at the Sheffield Crucible, opening on 2 December.

Jemima Rooper will star as Sally and Daniel Crossley as Bill in the new version of Noel Gay’s classic show, alongside Miriam Margolyes as the Duchess.

Anna Mackmin, who recently directed Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at the Old Vic, will be directing her first musical. She is working with scriptwriter Stephen Russell to give the book of the show, which was rewritten by Stephen Fry for the successful 1980s West End production, a bit more sparkle. Choreography will be by Stephen Mear and design by Peter McKintosh.

Jemima Rooper came to prominence in Channel Four drama As If and has had numerous screen and stage roles including her current performance in All My Sons at the Apollo Theatre alongside Zoe Wanamaker and David Suchet.

Daniel Crossley, who is the partner of Sheffield artistic director Daniel Evans, is an accomplished musicals actor having appeared in high-profile shows including Mary Poppins, Chicago, Fosse and last summer’s Hello Dolly! at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park.

The show is widely tipped to head to the West End after its Sheffield run given that it has been 17 years since the Leicester Haymarket Theatre’s production left the Adelphi Theatre in London after 8 years, 3,303 performances and lots of Lambeth walking by the likes of Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson. The production made a lot of money for all concerned so it’s a canny Daniel Evans, Sheffield’s artistic director, who’s resurrecting it.

LINKS

Me and My Girl – Sheffield Theatres

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Love Story set for West End

Erich Segal’s best-selling novel Love Story, which was famously turned into a film starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal, will come to the West End this year.

The new musical by Howard Goodall and Stephen Clark, had its premiere earlier this year at the Chichester Festival Theatre and was well received by critics, with The Stage calling it a “gorgeous new chamber musical”. As befits a chamber piece, it will transfer to the modestly-sized Duchess Theatre from 27 November. The producers of the show include West End star Michael Ball, Adam Spiegel and Stephen Waley-Cohen.

The show is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, with a book by Stephen Clark, design by Peter McKintosh and musical direction by Stephen Ridley.

Casting will be announced shortly. In Chichester the show starred Michael Xavier and Emma Williams.

In the musical, rich jock Oliver Barrett meets poor arty Jenny Cavilleri and against the odds they fall in love.

CREDITS:

Emmy, Brit and BAFTA award-winning Howard Goodall is one of the UK’s most versatile and distinguished composers having written choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores. Goodall was appointed as England’s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, he is the Classical Brit Composer of the Year and Classic FM’s Composer-in-Residence and a highly respected broadcaster and an energetic campaigner for music education.  His extensive scores include Q.I., The Vicar of Dibley, The Gathering Storm, The Borrowers, The Catherine Tate Show, Mr Bean, Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie, Mr Bean’s Holiday and Blackadder.  Previously his musical theatre compositions include The Hired Man, Girlfriends, Days of Hope, Catwalk, The Kissing Dance and The Dreaming.

Stephen Clark’s work includes Mahabharata for Sadler’s Wells, The Far Pavilions at the Shaftesbury Theatre, the Laurence Olivier award-winning Martin Guerre at the Prince Edward Theatre, La Traviata for English National Opera and Zorro at the Garrick Theatre and Folies Bergère, Paris.

Love Story is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, Artistic Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre where her many credits include Hapgood, Peter Pan – A Musical Adventure and Uncle Vanya as well as David Hare’s Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges and The Absence Of War.  Her other credits include The Music Man starring Brian Conley and A Small Family Business for Chichester Festival Theatre, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Alice in Wonderland for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hilda for Hampstead Theatre and The Rivals for Bristol Old Vic.

Michael Ball makes his producing debut with Love Story.  His many West End credits include originating the role of Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, produced by Adam Spiegel, and for which he won the Laurence Olivier and Whatsonstage Awards for Best Actor in a Musical.  He can currently be seen on tour in the UK reprising the role of Edna.  His other theatre roles include Marius in Les Misérables, Giorgio in Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera, Alex  in Aspects of Love, Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Count Fosco in The Woman in White in the West End and on Broadway.  His made his English National Opera debut as Hajj/Poet in Kismet and in 2005 he made his debut with the New York City Opera as Reginald Bunthrone in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience.  As well as his Sunday Brunch for BBC Radio, he will present a new series for ITV, The Michael Ball Show, starting next month.  His 15 solo albums have all achieved gold or platinum status and his discography includes: Michael Ball, Always, One Careful Owner, First Love, The Musicals, The Movies, Music, One Voice and the superb homage to Burt Bacharach, Michael Ball – Back To Bacharach.

OUT OF TOWN: Chichester, Sheffield

New productions at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Sheffield Theatres, and the Derby Theatre

CHICHESTER:

Much excitement at westendtheatre.com at the casting of Chichester’s new production of 42nd Street (21 June – 28 August, Festival Theatre). Directed by the Leicester Curve’s Paul Kerryson, the show will feature the fabulous Kathryn Evans (Sunset Boulevard), dishy leading man Steven Houghton and the uber-talented Tim Flavin (Crazy for You).

SHEFFIELD:

On a retro-musicals note, Me and My Girl will resurface in Sheffield this Christmas (from 9 December, Sheffield Crucible). It’s been a whopping 17 years since the Leicester Haymarket Theatre’s all new, Stephen Fry-revised production left the Adelphi Theatre in London after 8 years, 3,303 performances and lots of Lambeth walking by the likes of Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson. The production made a lot of money for all concerned so it’s a canny Daniel Evans, Sheffield’s artistic director, who’s resurrecting it. The show will be directed by Anna Mackmin, who’s enjoying big success at the Old Vic at the moment with her production of The Real Thing starring Toby Stephens. Choreography will be by Stephen Mear and design by Peter McKintosh.

If we begged him, do you think Daniel Evans would take the lead?

DERBY:

Having mentioned Robert Lindsay, he will resurrect his performance as Aristotle Onassis in Martin Sherman’s play Onassis (Derby Theatre,  from 10 September). Based on the last years of the controversial Greek tycoon, the play was originally produced as Aristo at Chichester to mixed reviews but with glowing praise for Lindsay’s performance. Sherman and director Nancy Meckler have subsequently rewritten the piece.

The production will then transfer to the Novello Theatre in London in late September.

Entertaining Mr Sloane – Review

The shock waves created by John Osborne’s seminal Look Back In Anger (1956) in the hitherto cosy post-war British theatre, had a mini boost two years later with the appearance of Shelagh Delaney’s in-your-face A Taste of Honey, and a seismic one six years after that with the arrival of an iconoclastic playwright bovver boy called Joe Orton.

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