Rehearsal photos of Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Staring previews this Friday, 24 June 2011, is the European premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s new musical Road Show at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Road Show stars American TV and stage actor David Bedella (Jerry Springer – The Opera), Michael Jibson (Our House), Jon Robyns (Avenue Q) and Gillian Bevan (Doctors).

Set in the early part of the twentieth-century, Road Show is based on the fascinating real-life story of two brothers,  Addison and Wilson Mizner. Both are outrageous fortune seekers and their boom-and-bust story stretches from the Klondike and Alaskan Gold Rushes to managing boxers, holding up restaurants, running gambling dens, retailing on Fifth Avenue, owning New York hotels, writing Broadway plays and Hollywood screenplays and trying to capitalise on the great Florida land boom. Irving Berlin started, but did not finish, a musical based on Wilson Mizner’s life.

The production will be directed and designed by the John Doyle, who returns to the show after directing its world premiere at the Public Theatre in New York in 2008. Doyle’s other credits include a Tony award for his 2006 production of Sondheim’s Company, and Mack and Mabel in the West End with David Soul and Janie Dee.

Road Show features a book by John Weidman and the cast also include Adrian Der Gregorian, Fiona Dunn, Sarah Ingram, Julie Jupp, Glyn Kerslake, Elizabeth Marsh, Christopher Ragland and Robbie Scotcher.

LINKS

More news on Road Show

 

First-look Photos: Elaine Paige, Bernadette Peters in Follies at the Kennedy Center

Production photos for Stephen Sondheim’s Follies at the Kennedy Center in Washington starring Bernadette Peters and Elaine Paige

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is currently presenting the Kennedy Center revival production of Follies. The musical runs from 7 May to 19 June 2011 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. The production features a book by James Goldman and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and is directed by Eric Schaeffer with choreography by Warren Carlyle and musical direction by James Moore.

Principal casting includes Bernadette Peters as Sally Durant Plummer, Jan Maxwell as Phyllis Rogers Stone, Danny Burstein as Buddy Plummer, Ron Raines as Benjamin Stone, and Elaine Paige as Carlotta Campion.

The production also stars Terrence Currier as Theodore Whitman, Christian Delcroix as Young Buddy, Rosalind Elias as Heidi Schiller, Colleen Fitzpatrick as Dee Dee West, Lora Lee Gayer as Young Sally, Michael Hayes as Roscoe, Florence Lacey as Sandra Crane, Linda Lavin as Hattie Walker, Régine as Solange LaFitte, David Sabin as Dimitri Weismann, Kirsten Scott as Young Phyllis, Frederick Strother as Max Deems, Nick Verina as Young Ben, Susan Watson as Emily Whitman and Terri White as Stella Deems. Rounding out the ensemble is Lawrence Alexander, Brandon Bieber, John Carroll, Sara Edwards, Leslie Flesner, Jenifer Foote, Leah Horowitz, Suzanne Hylenski, Danielle Jordan, Joseph Kolinski, Amanda Larsen, Brittany Marcin, Edrie Means, Erin Moore, Pamela Otterson, Clifton Samuels, Kiira Schmidt, Brian Shepard, Sam Strasfeld, Amos Wolff and Ashley Yeater.

Originally produced on Broadway by Harold Prince with orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, Follies opened on April 4, 1971 starring Dorothy Collins, John McMartin, Gene Nelson, and Alexis Smith. It ran for 522 performances in the Winter Garden Theatre and received seven Tony Awards®, including Best Original Score.

LINKS

The Kennedy Center website

 

Road Show by Stephen Sondheim tickets at the Menier Chocolate Factory starring David Bedella

The Menier Chocolate Factory present the European premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s latest musical ROAD SHOW, starring David Bedella, Michael Jibson, Jon Robyns and Gillian Bevan, and directed by Tony award winner John Doyle.

Sondheim’s Road Show to premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory starring David Bedella

The European premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s latest musical, Road Show, will open at the Menier Chocolate Factory this Summer.

Running from 24 June to 17 September 2011, with an opening night on 6 July, the show will star American TV and stage actor David Bedella (Jerry Springer – The Opera), Michael Jibson (Our House), Jon Robyns (Avenue Q) and Gillian Bevan (Doctors).

Set in the early part of the twentieth-century, Road Show is based on the fascinating real-life story of two brothers,  Addison and Wilson Mizner. Both are outrageous fortune seekers and their boom-and-bust story stretches from the Klondike and Alaskan Gold Rushes to managing boxers, holding up restaurants, running gambling dens, retailing on Fifth Avenue, owning New York hotels, writing Broadway plays and Hollywood screenplays and trying to capitalise on the great Florida land boom. Irving Berlin started, but did not finish, a musical based on Wilson Mizner’s life.

The production will be directed and designed by the John Doyle, who returns to the show after directing its world premiere at the Public Theatre in New York in 2008. Doyle’s other credits include a Tony award for his 2006 production of Sondheim’s Company, and Mack and Mabel in the West End with David Soul and Janie Dee.

The show has had a complicated past: Sondheim originally called the show Wise Guys, which premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1999 directed by Sam Mendes and starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber. It was then rewritten and called Bounce, opening in 2003 in Chicago directed by Hal Prince but was not a critical success. Finally Sondheim reworked to show again, and renamed it Road Show. It opened at the Public Theatre’s Newman Theater in New York in 2008 starring Michael Cerveris and Alexander Gemignani, and won positive reviews including the New York Times’s Ben Brantley writing that, “the greatest living master of the American musical has returned artistically to a place where he has always felt most at home” and David Rooney of Variety saying that, “anybody who cares about musical theater should not miss this.”

The Menier has a solid track record of producing Sondheim, with both Sunday in the Park with George and A Little Night Music transferring to the West End and Broadway and winning a number of awards.

Road Show features a book by John Weidman and the cast also include Adrian Der Gregorian, Fiona Dunn, Sarah Ingram, Julie Jupp, Glyn Kerslake, Elizabeth Marsh, Christopher Ragland and Robbie Scotcher.

CAST

David Bedella

Michael Jibson

Gillian Bevan

Jon Robyns

 

LINKS

Menier Chocolate Factory website

Photos: Sweeney Todd at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris

Director of the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Jean-Luc Choplin, has probably done more than anyone else to bring Broadway musicals to France, culminating in a major new production of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

The Broadway musical is an almost non-existent art form in France, so Jean-Luc Chopin’s decision to stage Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at his Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in February 2010 proved a watershed moment for musical theatre in the country.

It was, incredibly, the first time Stephen Sondheim had been performed in France, and following its short but successful run he has programmed a succession of musicals at the venue including The Sound of Music, Showboat, West Side Story, Candide and My Fair Lady.

But the big test comes with a major new production of Sweeney Todd, previously unseen in France and featuring a heavy-weight cast including Franco Pomponi and Rod Gilfry alternating in the role of Sweeney Todd, Caroline O’Connor as Mrs Lovett, Rebecca Bottone as Joanna, Nicholas Garrett as Anthony and Jonathan Best as the Judge.

The new production is directed by Lee Blakeley, with orchestration by Jonathan Tunick, musical direction by David Charles Abell, costumes by Tanya McCallin, lighting by Rick Fisher and choreography by Lorena Randi.

Westendtheatre.com’s official photographer Roy Tan caught up with the production in Paris.

Sweeney Todd runs from 22 April to 21 May 2011

LINKS

Sweeney Todd at the Théâtre du Châtelet

Backstage at the 2011 Olivier Awards

Acclaimed photographer Charlie Gray went behind the scenes at this year’s Olivier Awards at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane to capture the stars of West End Theatre.

Charlie Gray is a prominent London photographer, well known for his film and TV work and his coverage of the BAFTA film awards.

He started his career shooting reportage for magazines and this style of capturing the glamour of the entertainment industry, combined with the drama of normal life, has stood him in good stead. He has become well-known for getting beautiful shots of beautiful people outside of their on-camera, on-stage lives.

Last year he completed a “Year Behind The Scenes of British Film” project for The Sunday Times, requiring him to visit 20 film sets. Projects like this, and his work as the official photographer for BAFTA for the last four years, means that he has built up an impressive portfolio packed full of famous faces.

In recognition of the Olivier Award’s step-change this year, to become an altogether more glamorous face of the West End theatre industry, the Sunday Times commissioned Gray to go behind the scenes at the Olivier Awards for a Spectrum feature that ran in the Sunday Times magazine on 3 April. The beautiful colour and black and white shots feature a who’s who of London theatre including Amanda Holden, Stephen Sondheim, Barry Manilow, Elisabeth Moss, Angela Lansbury, Michael Ball, Sheridan Smith and Anne-Marie Duff.

A book and exhibition are the next the logical next steps for Gray, but for the time being he’s happy to be busy out there, getting the work done. “Perhaps next year after my 5th BAFTA”, he said.

LINKS

Charlie Gray’s website

The Sunday Times website

GALLERY

SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE SPREAD

Your theatre week, 21 to 27 March 2011

This week sees a number of birthday celebrations, including two American theatre greats: Stephen Sondheim turns 81 after a riotous year of 80th birthday tributes culminating in his Olivier Special Award, and this week marks the centenary of the great Tennessee Williams.

Also Priscilla makes it to two years old this week as the Broadway production starts camping it up on the other side of the Atlantic, and Kneehigh Theatre Company follow their acclaimed production of Brief Encounter with another reimagining of a cinema classic, this time French movie The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Tuesday 22 March

Kneehigh’s new production of French film classic The Umbrellas of Cherbourg opens tonight at the Gielgud Theatre starring Joanna Riding and Meow Meow.

Happy birthday Stephen Sondheim, who is 81 today.

Wednesday 23 March

Priscilla Queen of the Desert is 2 today, having opened on 23 March 2009.

Thursday 24 March

Dreamboats and Petticoats: Your last chance to enter the Dreamboats and Petticoats talent search, which ends at 9am on 31 March 2011.

Watch Frankenstein tonight in UK cinemas, starring Jonny Lee Miller as the Creature and Benedict Cumberbatch as Victor.

Saturday 26 March

SMASH! starts at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London starring Tom Conti, written by award-winning playwright Jack Rosenthal (Yentl).

The Centenary of internationally acclaimed playwright Tennessee Williams is today. He was born on 26 March 1911.

 

Olivier Awards: National, Legally Blonde

In a star-studded awards ceremony last night, Sunday 13 March, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London, the Society of London Theatre held their 35th annual theatre awards ceremony.

Hosted by musicals star Michael Ball and actress Imelda Staunton, the awards celebrate the best of the year’s London theatre.

Big winners last night included the National Theatre, which swept up seven awards for two of its productions: Thea Sharrock’s revival of Terence Rattigan’s After the Dance, which won awards including best revival, best actress for Nancy Carroll and best actor in a supporting role for Adrian Scarborough; and its production of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard, including best director for Howard Davies and best set design for Bunny Christie.

In other subsidised venues the Royal Court picked up three awards, including best new play for Bruce Norris’s comedy Clybourne Park, which is now playing at the Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End, and two awards for the Donmar Warehouse, including David Thaxton picking up best actor in a musical for Passion.

Roger Allam won best actor for his performance as Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Globe’s production of Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, beating stiff competition from Rory Kinnear, Derek Jacobi, David Suchet and Mark Rylance.

The most successful musical of the night was Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre, which picked up three major awards: best new musical, best actress in a musical for Sheridan Smith and best performance in a supporting role in a Musical for Jill Halfpenny.

Other musicals rewarded at the event included We Will Rock You, which won the Olivier Audience Award voted for by members of the theatregoing public, and the Open Air Theatre’s summer production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

Stephen Sondheim was presented with an Olivier Special Award for his enormous contribution to theatre, with the award presented by Sir Cameron Mackintosh and legendary actress Angela Lansbury.

Big shows to miss out on awards this year included Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, which failed to pick up any awards despite seven nominations, and End of the Rainbow at the Trafalgar Studios, which was nominated for four awards including best actress for Tracie Bennett in her performance as Judy Garland.

Notable performances during the ceremony included a star turn by legendary American singer Barry Manilow, who also sang a duet with Wicked and Oliver! star Kerry Ellis; current and former stars of The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies – Ramin Karimloo, John Owen-Jones and Sierra Boggess; Emma Williams and Michael Xavier singing Everything We Know from Love Story; Alfie Boe, who is soon to star in Les Miserables at the Queen’s Theatre, singing Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific; Susan McFadden and the current cast of Legally Blonde; and Adrian Lester paying tribute to Stephen Sondheim by singing Being Alive from Company, along with Angela Lansbury singing a moving rendition of Liaisons from A Little Night Music and 400 students from national drama schools singing Our Time from Merrily We Roll Along.

LISTEN & WATCH AGAIN

BBC iPlayer – Radio 2 coverage

BBC iPlayer – BBC News

LINKS

Olivier Awards – list of winners

Olivier Awards microsite

Olivier Awards – news

Olivier Awards – Binkie Blog’s Picks and Pans

Stephen Sondheim to receive Special Olivier Award

America’s great living composer and lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, will be honoured at this year’s Olivier Awards with a Special Award.

At the awards ceremony on 13 Match 2011 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Sondheim will be given the Special Award for his achievement within theatre.

Past recipients of the award include Harold Pinter, Ralph Richardson, Ian McKellen, Peter Hall, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier.

The award follows a year of celebrations for the composer’s 80th birthday including a number of revivals of his shows, including the Olivier Award nominated Passion at the Donmar Warehouse.

Sondheim will be at the ceremony in person to collect the award.

Chichester Festival announces new season

The Chichester Festival Theatre has announced its new 2011 season, including a major celebration of the work of Terence Rattigan and three new productions of classic musicals.

High-profile directors include Trevor Nunn, Max Stafford-Clark, Jonathan Church, Philip Franks and Sean Mathias.

Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton to star in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

Sir Ian McKellen returns to Chichester to star alongside Michael Pennington in The Syndicate.

Chichester Festival Theatre has announced its new 2011 season, starting on 9 May. Artistic Director Jonathan Church has put together an impressive slate of new productions, attracting major directors and stellar acting talent to cover both drama and musicals.

Three big musicals will be revived this year, following Chichester’s 2010 stage version of famous film weepy Love Story, which is currently playing at the Duchess Theatre in London. The season kicks off with Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s She Loves Me (from 9 May), starring Joe McFadden and Dianne Pilkington, and directed and choreographed by Stephen Mear. The show was last seen in the West End in 1994 starring Ruthie Henshall, John Gordon Sinclair and Tracie Bennett.

From 27 June, MGM musical Singin’ in the Rain gets a brand new production by Jonathan Church, starring Adam Cooper, Daniel Crossley and Scarlett Strallen. The musical trio is completed at the end of the season by the much talked-about and anticipated new production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (from 24 September), directed by Jonathan Kent and starring Michael Ball in the title role and Imelda Staunton as Mrs Lovett.

The festival will also celebrate the work of Terence Rattigan with a mini season of productions, timed to coincide with the playwright’s centenary year in 2011. Shows include The Deep Blue Sea (from 13 July) directed by Philip Franks; and The Browning Version (from 2 September) directed by Angus Jackson, alongside the world premiere of a new one-act play by David Hare, South Downs, directed by Jeremy Herrin and commissioned by the Rattigan Trust as a response to The Browning Version. Also Nicholas Wright’s new play Rattigan’s Nijinsky, based on a screenplay by Rattigan, will get a world premiere from 19 July  directed by Philip Franks; and from 31 July the festival will hold a series of rehearsed readings of some of Rattigan’s lesser-known plays, including First Episode,  Adventure Story, Variation On A Theme, Heart To Heart and Harlequinade, plus In Praise Of Rattigan, devised by Jack Tinker and Martin Tickner and directed and featuring Penelope Keith.

Other new productions include Trevor Nunn following his spring production of Rattigan’s Flare Path in the West End, by directing Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (from 20 May); Max Stafford-Clark and his Out of Joint theatre company join forces with Chichester to revisit Caryl Churchill’s 1982 play Top Girls (from 23 June); and Sir Ian McKellen stars in a new version of Eduardo De Filippo’s The Syndicate (from 21 July), also starring Michael Pennington and directed by Sean Mathias.

LINKS

Chichester Festival Theatre website

Video: Sweeney Todd – Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton on The Michael Ball Show

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