Tyne Daly as Maria Callas in Master Class

Master Class, produced in the West End by Max Cooper, Maberry Theatricals, the Marks-Moore-Turnbull Group, Ted Snowdon and Sonia Friedman Productions in association with the Manhattan Theatre Club, will run at the Vaudeville Theatre for 14 weeks only from 21 January to 28 April, with press night on 7 February 2012. Set design is by Thomas Lynch, costume design by Martin Pakledinaz, lighting by David Lander and sound by Jon Gottlieb. Tickets go on sale today (4 November 2011) for Master Class and further casting will be announced shortly.

Terrence McNally’s play about Maria Callas takes audiences to one of her famous master classes, where, late in her own career, she dares the next generation to make the same sacrifices and rise to the same heights that made her the most celebrated, the most reviled and the most controversial singer of her time.

Terrence McNally’s Master Class received its world premiere at the John Golden Theatre in 1995, wining the Tony Award for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play. Stephen Wadsworth’s Manhattan Theatre Club production opened at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre earlier this year. Tyne Daly first appeared in Stephen Wadsworth’s production of Master Class at the Kennedy Center.

Multi award-winning Tyne Daly plays Maria Callas. She is best known on television for her portrayal of Detective Mary Beth Lacey in Cagney and Lacey, for which she received four Emmy Awards. For her roles as Maxine Gray in Judging Amy and Alice Henderson in Christy she received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama. For the former she also won Golden Globe Award. Her many Broadway credits include Rose in Gypsy for which she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, Mme. Arkadina in The Seagull and Rabbit Hole. Daley’s film credits include The Enforcer, Dirty Harry, John and Mary and Telefon.

Writer Terrence McNally has won four Tony Awards for his plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and his musical books for Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Ragtime. More recent Broadway revivals of his plays include The Ritz and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. His other plays include A Perfect Ganesh, Corpus Christi, Lips Together and Its Only a Play. His most recent play, Golden Age, was featured in the Kennedy Center celebration of his work year. For the musical theatre other his librettos include Catch Me if You Can, The Full Monty, The Rink, The Visit, A Man of No Importance and the opera Dead Man Walking. McNally has also written a number of television scripts including Andre’s Mother for which he won an Emmy Award.

Theatre and Opera director Stephen Wadsworth has worked for Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Edinburgh Festival, Nederlandse Opera, Seattle Opera and in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto and Santa Fe. Wadsworth is the Head of Dramatic Studies at the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, the James S. Marcus Faculty Fellow and Director of Opera Studies at The Juilliard School, an artist in residence at the Aspen Institute, and a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Release issued by: Premier PR

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Book tickets to see Master Class at the Vaudeville Theatre starring Tyne Daly

Book tickets to see Broken Glass at the Vaudeville Theatre in London

Antony Sher and Tara Fitzgerald in Broken Glass

Dan and Jeff in Potted Panto

Potted Panto features eight classic pantomimes in just eighty minutes, in a dash through the biggest stories and best-loved characters from panto. The kid-friendly double act career through Cinderella in 3D, do Dick Whittington featuring Jeff as the Mayor of London: blond, posh and receiving just the treatment he deserves (with a large mallet and a custard pie), and give panto favourite Aladdin a whole new twist!

The show will run at the Vaudeville Theatre in London from Sunday 18 December 2011 to Sunday 8 January 2012. The show is written by Daniel Clarkson, Jefferson Turner and Richard Hurst and directed by Richard Hurst.

This year the show will also feature an eighth pantomime which will be decided by public vote from a shortlist drawn up by Dan and Jeff.

The boys are also coming to the West End this Summer, bringing their hit Edinburgh Festival show Potted Potter to the Garrick Theatre from 18 August 2011.

LINKS

Book tickets to Potted Potter at the Garrick Theatre in London

Vaudeville Theatre, London – Sunday 18 December 2011 to Sunday 8 January 2012
PRESS PERFORMANCE: Tuesday 20 December at 3.30 pm

CBBC’s Dan and Jeff return for a second festive season of Potted Panto, following a Best Entertainment nomination in the Olivier Awards and a West End run of their original show Potted Potter. For Christmas 2011, Potted Panto features eight classic pantomimes in just eighty minutes. That’s one whole panto more than last year, with tickets frozen at 2010 prices.

Like a fine Christmas gravy, Dan and Jeff have seasoned, simmered and reduced the best ingredients of the nation’s favourite festive shows into one neatly gift-wrapped package. In a dash through the biggest stories and best-loved characters from panto, our dastardly double act career through Cinderella in 3D including a cameo from the first ever Fairy-Godchicken to grace a West End stage. They dazzle with a Dick Whittington featuring Jeff as the Mayor of London: blond, posh and receiving just the treatment he deserves (with a large mallet and a custard pie).

An astonishing new take on Jeff’s favourite panto Aladdin gives the story a whole new twist, and Daisy the Cow from Jack and The Beanstalk gives a heart-rending turn as she’s led to market. Not to mention the full-scale versions of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty which see Dan and Jeff trying to work out not only how two people can play seven dwarves, but also which of them will make the prettiest princess. From conventions and costume to heroes and villains, the dastardly double act explore all the elements of the art form we both love and loathe as a nation.

This year the show will also feature an eighth pantomime which will be decided by public vote from a shortlist drawn up by Dan and Jeff. More news on this is coming soon.

Potted Panto premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in summer 2010, proving Christmas could come soon enough with the sell-out crowds and wide-spread acclaim. It played Christmas at the Vaudeville last year and toured nationally. Now best-known as CBBC presenters, Dan and Jeff have been bringing the best in family entertainment to London, the nation and Edinburgh Fringe since 2006 – enjoying seven sell-out runs across five Edinburgh seasons. Their first show Potted Potter saw them win widespread acclaim and a fan base that crossed three generations. It played four sell-out Fringe seasons, three sell-out London seasons and extensive national and international touring. It transfers from Pleasance Grand in Edinburgh to the Garrick Theatre in London on 18 August. In 2008 they premiered their second show, Potted Pirates, which followed a similar stellar path and still tours. The pair have also made storytelling appearances on Blue Peter and Big Brother’s Little Brother.

Here’s what the press thought of the show:
The hordes of children fall around with delight at the mixture of sarcasm and slapstick. The Times
A hoot of a show… Huge fun for five years and upwards. Evening Standard
Potted Panto is zany, naughty and deliciously festive fun for all ages…
If all pantomime was this enjoyable, they’d have a convert here. Whatsonstage ****
For a glorious dose of silliness, you can always rely on CBBC’s Dan and Jeff. The Guardian

Director and co-writer Richard Hurst directed Potted Potter and joined the writing team for Potted Pirates in 2008. His other work as a writer and director includes Bill Hicks: Slight Return and Jan Ravens: A Funny Look At Impressions. Other recent work as a writer for TV includes Secret Diary Of A Call Girl (ITV2, Showtime); and, as a co-writer, Miranda (BBC2).

Join Dan and Jeff for a spectacular, silly and splendid celebration of a truly great British theatre tradition and enjoy eight shows for the price of one this Christmas!

Release issued by: Kate Gambrell

LINKS

Book tickets to Potted Potter at the Garrick Theatre in London

Vaudeville Theatre, 15 December 2011 – 14 January 2012
Suitable for 6yrs+

The critically acclaimed Bristol Old Vic production of SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS, a new musical play with book by Helen Edmundson and songs by Neil Hannon, comes to the West End this Christmas for a strictly limited 5-week run, presented by the National Theatre and The Children’s Touring Partnership. Tickets are on sale from Monday 25 July for performances at the Vaudeville Theatre from 15 December – 14 January (press night: Monday 19 December.)

Based on the much-loved book by Arthur Ransome, this delightful and imaginative production is directed by Tom Morris, Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic and co-director of the National Theatre’s Tony Award-winning smash hit War Horse. SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS has music and lyrics by Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy and is written by Helen Edmundson, who adapted the National’s Coram Boy.

All aboard The Swallow! Follow Captain John and his able crew as they set sail to Wildcat Island on an exotic adventure to encounter savages, capture dastardly pirates and defeat mortal enemies.

An action-packed musical adventure for the whole family (ages 6+), SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS is a story of an idyllic era, of endless summer evenings and the beauty of youthful imagination.

SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS opened at Bristol Old Vic in December 2010 for a sell-out run and was a critical and popular hit; it was originally developed at the National Theatre Studio. Following its run at the Vaudeville Theatre, the production will embark on a UK tour (dates to be announced on 1 September; for more information please visit www.swallowsamazons.co.uk).

The director of movement is Toby Sedgwick, who won an Olivier Award for War Horse; with set design by Robert Innes Hopkins, costume design by Robert Innes Hopkins & Liesel Corp, musical direction and arrangements by Sam Kenyon, lighting design by James Farncombe, sound by Jason Barnes and additional musical arrangements by Andrew Skeet.

Published in 1930, Swallows and Amazons was the first in a series of twelve books by Arthur Ransome (1884-1967). Set in 1929 in the Lake District, it tells of the school holiday exploits of the Walker and Blackett children and their sailing dinghies – the Swallow and the Amazon.

Helen Edmundson’s many adaptations include Coram Boy, which played two sell-out seasons at the National Theatre, and Anna Karenina, Mill on the Floss, War and Peace, Gone to Earth (Shared Experience). Other work includes The Clearing (Bush Theatre), Mother Teresa is Dead (Royal Court), and a version of Calderon’s Life is a Dream (Donmar). Her new play, The Heresy of Love, opens for the RSC at the Swan in February 2012.

Neil Hannon is a singer, lyricist and composer. Although he is best known for writing, recording and performing as The Divine Comedy, he has also written extensively for TV and film, including the music to Father Ted and The IT Crowd. He has collaborated with everyone from Michael Nyman to Tom Jones, and his cricket-themed project The Duckworth Lewis Method was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award. Swallows and Amazons is his first venture into the world of musical theatre.

Tom Morris was appointed Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic in September 2009. As Associate Director of the National Theatre (2004 – 2009), he developed and co-directed (with Marianne Elliott) War Horse which is currently running in the West End and on Broadway, where it received 6 Tony Awards; and co-directed Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. Previously he was Artistic Director at Battersea Arts Centre from 1995 to 2004. He sits on the board of Complicite and is Chair of the JMK Trust.

Established in 2010 and led by independent producer Fiery Angel and Chichester Festival Theatre, the Children’s Touring Partnership receives generous support from Arts Council England. Their inaugural production, Goodnight Mister Tom, premiered at Chichester in January 2011 and subsequently toured the UK for fourteen weeks. The Children’s Touring Partnership will be presenting the tour of Bristol Old Vic’s stage adaptation of Swallows and Amazons throughout spring 2012.

Release issued by: National Theatre press office

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The Flying Karamazov Brothers

They don’t fly, they’re not Russian and they’re not brothers! But The Flying Karamazov Brothers continue to take the world by storm with their hilarious and breathtaking entertainment show of music, comedy, acrobatics, dance and juggling.

See a round-up of The Flying Karamazov Brothers reviews, below.

LINKS

SPECIAL OFFER: Book tickets to The Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Vaudeville Theatre in London