Nigels Lindsay and Harman join Shrek
Producers of the big-budget new production of Shrek The Musical, which is in pre-production for its West End launch in June 2011, have announced two further additions to the cast.
Shrek The Musical
Nigel Lindsay will play the title role of Shrek in the much-anticipated West End stage production of the hit DreamWorks movie. Lindsay’s credits include movie Four Lions , the original National Theatre production of Dealer’s Choice and Nathan Detroit in Michael Grandage’s 1995 production of Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre.
Another Nigel, TV and stage star Nigel Harman, has been cast as Lord Farquaad. Best known for playing Dennis in EastEnders, his numerous stage credits include Sky Masterson alongside Nigel Lindsay in Guys and Dolls, Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, Three Days of Rain at the Apollo Theatre and True West at the Sheffield Crucible.
They will join Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden as Princess Fiona and Richard Blackwood as the Donkey.
The forthcoming DreamWorks production of Shrek The Musical®, based on the Oscar-winning film, opens at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London on 7 June 2011.
Shrek The Musical originally opened on Broadway in December 2008 and was nominated for eight Tony Awards. It closed in January this year after a relatively short run, although is now on a major tour of the USA. A number of changes have been made to the touring – and forthcoming London version – of the show, including a new opening, new songs, improved magic and illusions, a newly styled dragon and more emphasis on giving the show “heart”.
The London stage musical is based on the irreverent fairy tale from William Steig’s book Shrek and the Oscar-winning DreamWorks Animation film. The creative team includes directors Jason Moore (Avenue Q) and Rob Ashford (Promises, Promises), with book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, music by Olivier Award winner Jeanine Tesori, scenic, costume and puppet design by Tim Hatley, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound design by Peter Hylenski and choreography by Josh Prince.
The show is the first stage venture for DreamWorks Animation’s theatrical arm and was originally initiated as a project by award-winning director Sam Mendes. The musical will be produced in London by DreamWorks Theatricals’ Bill Damaschke and Mendes’ Neal Street Productions under Caro Newling.
Drury Lane is currently home to Oliver!, which will close at the theatre on 8 January 2011.
Amanda Holden to star in Shrek
July 30, 2010 by admin
Filed under News, News - Featured
Britain’s Got Talent judge to star as Princess Fiona in new stage adaptation of Shrek
Amanda Holden to play Princess Fiona in Shrek
Amanda Holden, the TV and stage actress and judge on ITV’s variety show Britain’s Got Talent, has secured a lead role in the forthcoming DreamWorks production of Shrek The Musical®, based on the Oscar-winning film.
Playing Princess Fiona, the down-to-earth and independent heroine of the show, Shrek The Musical opens at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London on 7 June 2011.
Holden has a theatrical background, having trained at Mountview Theatre School and appeared in stage roles including Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Mille at the Shaftsbury Theatre and Liesl Von Trapp in a touring production of The Sound of Music. Her numerous TV credits include Suspicious Circumstances opposite Edward Woodward, Eastenders, Mel in Kiss Me Kate, The Grimleys, Wild At Heart, Cutting It and Big Top.
Shrek The Musical originally opened on Broadway in December 2008 and was nominated for eight Tony Awards. It closed in January this year after a relatively short run, although is now on a major tour of the USA. A number of changes have been made to the touring – and forthcoming London version – of the show, including a new opening, new songs, improved magic and illusions, a newly styled dragon and more emphasis on giving the show “heart”.
This has been confirmed by reviews of the US touring show, which opened this month at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago starring Eric Petersen. The Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones said that the show had, “finally discovered a human scale. Or, to put it another way, “Shrek the Musical” has belatedly found more of a heart”.
Richard Blackwood to play Donkey
Other casting confirmed for the London production includes Richard Blackwood, who will play the Donkey. Blackwood is a comedian, singer and TV and radio presenter and is also step-brother to model Naomi Campbell. Recent stage appearances include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Novello Theatre alongside James Earl Jones and Adrian Lester.
The London stage musical is based on the irreverent fairy tale from William Steig’s book Shrek and the Oscar-winning Dreamworks Animation film. The creative team includes directors Jason Moore (Avenue Q) and Rob Ashford (Promises, Promises), with book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, music by Olivier Award winner Jeanine Tesori, scenic, costume and puppet design by Tim Hatley, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound design by Peter Hylenski and choreography by Josh Prince.
The show is the first stage venture for DreamWorks Animation’s theatrical arm and was originally initiated as a project by award-winning director Sam Mendes. The musical will be produced in London by DreamWorks Theatricals’ Bill Damaschke and Mendes’ Neal Street Productions under Caro Newling.
Neal Street Productions is also behind a number of high-profile new London theatre projects including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Current shows include the Mendes’-directed As You Like It and The Tempest at the Old Vic Theatre.
Official casting information will be released soon. Drury Lane is currently home to Oliver!, which will close at the theatre on 8 January 2011.
Welcome to Thebes – Review
Interesting that on the two occasions the Olivier Theatre has played host to new plays by women writers, both should tackle ambitious subjects and, understandably, prominently feature women.
Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Her Naked Skin (2008) dramatised the trials and tribulations of the militant suffragette movement in 1913, and in Welcome to Thebes, Moira Buffini connects the dots between contemporary politics and Greek tragedy.
The ambiguous question she leaves dangling and unanswered is how much of what happens to us is preordained by an implacable fate or man-made.
Though the play is set in the 21st century in an African city she calls Thebes, the situation is clearly inspired by recent events in Liberia and the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who founded a women’s peace movement, and who. after suffering political exile, became Africa’s first elected female president.
In Buffini’s modern take on Sophocles’ Antigone, Thebes’ newly elected leader is called Eurydice (Nikki Amuka-Bird), who, in the aftermath of a bloody civil war, turns to powerful Athens (read America) to help her establish a new democracy.
The leader of this super-power is Theseus (David Harewood), a cocksure clump of testosterone whose tunnel vision sees no further than the profit to be derived from such an alliance.
The arranged summit meeting, heralded by the arrival of a helicopter carrying Theseus and his delegates, is, however, compromised by Prince Tydeus (Chuck Iwuji), the leader of the opposition, who sabotages Eurydice’s plans by belabouring the shocking fact that Eurydice refuses to allow the rotting corpse of her vanquished warlord brother Polynices, to be buried, thereby perpetuating a regime of chaos and anarchy which makes mock of her impassioned talk of ‘truth and reconciliation’.
Throughout the evening Buffini injects any number of touches – from mobile phones, sanitising gel, internet websites, and the aforementioned helicopter to help contrast the ancient with the modern, and draws humour of sorts from a trio of very young soldiers who, before the auditorium lights dim, harangue the audience to switch off their phones and stop rummaging through their programmes.
Nonetheless, an air of self-conscious contrivance prevails as the author attempts to prove her thesis that nothing changes human nature, especially men behaving badly.
Played out against Tim Hatley’s operatic-looking ruin of a set, and acted in operatic fashion by a large cast, the best of whom are Nikki Amuka-Bird, David Harewood and Chuck Iwuji, Richard Eyre’s rock-solid direction does the best it can for a play whose ambitions cannot disguise its woolly thinking, often tiresome dialogue, and, most damaging of all, failure to involve us emotionally with any of the characters.
Olivier Theatre (National Theatre)
CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.
Book tickets to Welcome to Thebes at the National Theatre in London
Shrek The Musical to open in London
July 2, 2010 by admin
Filed under News, News - Featured, Shows opening
Everyone’s favourite ogre will be brought to life next year when SHREK THE MUSICAL®, based on the Oscar-winning DreamWorks film, hits the London stage.
Poster for the forthcoming US tour of Shrek the Musical
Produced by DreamWorks Theatricals and Sam Mendes’ Neal Street Productions, the show will open at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in May 2011. Drury Lane is currently home to Oliver!, which will close at the theatre on 8 January 2011.
Shrek The Musical originally opened on Broadway in December 2008 and was nominated for eight Tony Awards. It closed in January this year after a relatively short run, although is about to start a major tour of the USA, starting at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago on 13 July starring Eric Petersen, Haven Burton and Alan Mingo, Jr.
A number of changes will be made to the London version of the show including a new opening, new songs, improved magic and illusions, a newly styled dragon and more emphasis on giving the show “heart”.
The London stage musical is based on the irreverent fairy tale from William Steig’s book Shrek and the Oscar-winning Dreamworks Animation film. The creative team includes directors Jason Moore (Avenue Q) and Rob Ashford (Promises, Promises), with book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, music by Olivier Award winner Jeanine Tesori, scenic, costume and puppet design by Tim Hatley, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound design by Peter Hylenski and choreography by Josh Prince.
The show is the first stage venture for Dreamworks Animation’s theatrical arm and was originally initiated as a project by award-winning director Sam Mendes. The musical will be produced in London by DreamWorks Theatricals’ Bill Damaschke and Mendes’ Neal Street Productions under Caro Newling.
Neal Street Productions is also behind a number of high-profile new London theatre projects including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Current shows include the Mendes’-directed As You Like It and The Tempest at the Old Vic Theatre.
Official casting information will be released soon.
MORE ABOUT THE SHOW:
Shrek The Musical is about a swamp-dwelling ogre in a faraway kingdom, who embarks on a life-changing adventure in order to reclaim the deed to his land. This unlikely hero is joined on his quest by a wise-cracking donkey who won’t shut up, and has to fight a fearsome dragon, rescue feisty Princess Fiona and learn that real friendship and true love aren’t only found in fairy tales.
The final Shrek feature film in the series, Shrek Forever After, is on general release in the UK from today.
OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Set and Design Winners
June 9, 2010 by admin
Filed under Awards Data
OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Set and Design Winners
Best Set Design
2010 Jerusalem designed by Ultz
2009 August: Osage County designed by Todd Rosenthal
2008 Rae Smith and the Handspring Puppet Company for War Horse
2007 Sunday In The Park With George, designed by David Farley and Timothy Bird
2006 Hedda Gabler designed by Rob Howell
2005 His Dark Materials designed by Giles Cadle
2004 Hitchcock Blonde designed by William Dudley
2003 A Streetcar Named Desire designed by Bunny Christie
Best Set Designer
2002 Tim Hatley for Humble Boy and Private Lives
2001 William Dudley for All My Sons
2000 Rob Howell for Richard III, Troilus and Cressida and Vassa
1999 Anthony Ward for Oklahoma!
1998 Tim Goodchild for Three Hours After Marriage
1997 Tim Hatley for Stanley
1996 John Napier for Burning Blue
1995 Stephen Brimson Lewis for Design for Living and Les Parents Terribles
1994 Mark Thompson for Hysteria
1993 Ian MacNeil for An Inspector Calls
1992 Mark Thompson for The Comedy Of Errors
1991 Mark Thompson for The Wind In The Willows
Designer of the Year
1989/90Bob Crowley for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Hedda Gabler, Ghetto and The Plantagenets
1988 Richard Hudson for his season at The Old Vic
1987 Lucio Fanti (with Design Team) for The Hairy Ape
1986 William Dudley for Futurists, Kafka’s Dick and The Merry Wives Of Windsor
1985 William Dudley for The Mysteries and The Critics
1984 John Gunter for Wild Honey
1983 Ralph Koltai for Cyrano De Bergerac
1982 John Gunter for Guys And Dolls
1981 Carl Toms for The Provok’d Wife
1980 John Napier and Dermot Hayes for Nicholas Nickleby
1979 William Dudley for Undiscovered Country
1978 Ralph Koltai for Brand
1977 John Napier for King Lear
1976 Farrah for Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) and Henry V
Billy Elliot triumphs at Tonys
British musical Billy Elliot triumphed last night at the 63rd Annual Tony Awards, held at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
The show won 10 awards, taking the number of international awards Billy Elliot has won to an impressive 73. Its wins included best musical, best director (Stephen Daldry), featured actor in a musical (Gregory Jbara), and leading actor in a musical – which went to all three of the young actors playing Billy (David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, and Kiril Kulish). Billy Elliot also won a slew of creative awards including best orchestrations (Martin Koch), best scenic (Ian MacNeil), lighting (Rick Fisher) and sound (Paul Arditti) design of a musical, best book (Lee Hall) and best choreography (Peter Darling).
Liza Minnelli presented Elton John, Stephen Daldry, Eric Fellner and Sally Greene with the Tony for Best Musical, joined on stage by the cast, production team and co-producers.
The original production of Billy Elliot is still playing at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London after celebrating its 4th anniversary last month and the show has played to over 3.5 million people worldwide.
Despite sound problems running throughout the awards ceremony, the star-studded gala for 6,000 people saw an 11 minute show-stopping opening that included the three Billy’s performing “Electricity” from the show accompanied by Elton John, songs from West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, Next to Normal, Hair, Shrek, Dolly Parton singing 9 to 5 with the cast and Liza Minnelli singing “And the World Goes Round”.
Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, other shows profiled included Mamma Mia!, Legally Blonde and Jersey Boys, with guest appearances from Lucie Arnaz, Jeff Daniels, Edie Falco, Will Ferrell, Carrie Fisher, Jane Fonda, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon and John Stamos.
Other British winners included Angela Lansbury, winning her fifth Tony Award for her performance as Madam Arcati in Blithe Spirit; Matthew Warchus for best direction of a play for God of Carnage – and his production of The Norman Conquests also won best revival of a play; Tim Hatley for best costume design of a musical for Shrek; and Anthony Ward winning best costume design of a play for Mary Stuart.
The life of British actress Natasha Richardson was also celebrated at the awards following her death in March.
See the full list of 2009 Tony Award winners.
