Full casting has been announced for Cameron Mackintosh’s West End run of Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, coming to London’s Gielgud Theatre this September.
Haydn Gwynne (The Windsors, The Great British Bake off Musical), Damian Humbley (Merrily We Roll Along, The Great British Bake off Musical) Bradley Jaden (Wicked, Les Miserables), Gavin Lee (Mary Poppins, Beauty and the Beast) and Jason Pennycooke (Hamilton, La Cage Aux Folles) will join previously announced cast including Broadway Legends Bernadette Peters (Sunday in the Park with George, Into The Woods) and Lea Salonga (Miss Saigon).
Previously announced cast also include Christine Allado (Hamilton), Janie Dee (Follies), Bonnie Langford (Anything Goes), Jeremy Secomb (Sweeney Todd), Beatrice Penny-Touré (The Phantom of the Opera), Joanna Riding (Follies) and Jac Yarrow (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat).
The company will also include Harry Apps, Bella Brown and Monique Young, completing a cast that is truly the best of the West End and Broadway.
West End impresario Cameron Mackintosh is producing the show which was originally staged as a one-off tribute concert to Sondheim, who died in 2021 at the age of 91.
“I’m delighted to be welcoming so many old friends from my past productions, most of whom have stopped the show as well as some brilliant new ones, to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends at the Gielgud Theatre this autumn. To have gathered so many West End stars, as well as two legendary Broadway performers together for a new show such as this is rare outside a gala. Only the sublime talents of Sondheim could make this happen. Steve was always a Broadway Baby at heart, so I’m thrilled that this last show he and I started putting together during Covid is having a life beyond its triumphant gala. Featuring 39 of the greatest songs ever written for the musical theatre, performed by an incredible cast, staged by the incomparable Matthew Bourne, side-by-side with Julia McKenzie and choreographer Stephen Mear, audiences are in for a musical evening they will never forget in one great big Broadway show.”
Cameron Mackintosh
Opening at the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue from 16 September 2023, the show will play a limited 16-week run until 6 January 2024.
The show is directed by Matthew Bourne, side by side with Julia McKenzie, with choreography by Stephen Mear. Alfonso Casado Trigo will conduct with musical supervision by Stephen Brooker, musical arrangements by Stephen Metcalfe, set design by Matt Kinley, projection design by George Reeve, costume design by Jill Parker, lighting design by Warren Letton and sound design by Mick Potter.
Book tickets to Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends at the Gielgud Theatre in London
