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King’s Head Theatre has announced their Spring 2025 season, including three full-length musicals and new LGBTQ+ play Firebird.

First in the season, running from 9 January – 9 February 2025, is Firebird by Richard Hough and is based on Sergey Fetisov’s memoir Firebird: The Story of Roman.

Directed by Owen Lewis, the show draws on a true-life Cold War story of a young soldier and fighter pilot who embark on a clandestine affair in Soviet-occupied Estonia. The story comes alive on stage for the first time after an acclaimed film by Peeter Rebane and Tom Prior (2021) which premiered at BFI Flare: London’s LGBTQI+ Film Festival.

The theatre will be premiering three brand new full-length musicals in the season. The first of these, running from 13 February – 23 March 2025, is the world premiere of Stalled: A New Musical by Liesl Wilke and Andy Marsh. In a bougie-ass Seattle ladies’ room, meet a frazzled mother, a neurodivergent daughter, a young, nonbinary poet and a terrified, queer computer scientist. With soul-stirring melodies and a rare authenticity, Stalled: A New Musical was developed in a full reading on Broadway and workshop production in LA.

Former King’s Head Artistic Director Hannah Price will direct Rosie Day’s new play (This is Not a) Happy Room running from 26 March – 27 April 2025. Hailed as Saltburn meets Schitt’s Creek, this dark comedy follows a happily dysfunctional family reuniting for their father’s fourth wedding. However, when he dies in a car accident on the way there, the family rapidly switch the wedding to a funeral, unearthing secrets and confessions from their upbringing along the way.

Playing in repertoire alongside this from 1 – 27 April will be Naomi Westerman’s Puppy. The play explores boundaries of female and queer sexuality, following two women who set up their own feminist porn company and find themselves in a battle for their rights. The show is based around the controversial 2014 pornography legislation, which left many women working in the industry concerned that it would fall back on ‘boring male fantasy’. The month will thus be showcasing two brand new plays by female playwrights and directors, with audience members offered the chance to see both shows back-to-back every evening as a double bill.

From leading play-writing duo Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky comes The Gang of Three, (30 April – 1 June). This play follows Labour leader Harold Wilson’s shock resignation as Prime Minister in 1976, and the attempt by three feuding political giants – Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey and Tony Crosland – to replace him. The Gang of Three tells the story of how their fractured friendships and bitter rivalries instead ushered in eighteen years of Tory rule. This new political drama is directed by Kirsty Patrick Ward.

Following this will be King of Pangea with book, music and lyrics by Martin Storrow (7 June – 6 July), the second full-length musical of the season and a breakout hit with audiences at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s New Musicals Festival. When Christopher Crow faces a tragic loss, he escapes to the only place that makes sense – Pangea, the imaginary island of his childhood. Based on the author’s authentic experience, this wholly original and soul-stirring folk musical is a celebration of the extraordinary power of hope.

The trio of new full-length musicals concludes with Tom Ford & Alex Syiek’s The Show on the Roof (11 July – 16 August 2025). The show dramatises a series of investigations and arrests of queer men in Boise, Idaho in the 1950s. This toe-tapping new musical shines a light on a pivotal yet overlooked chapter of LGBTQ+ history, which remains a watershed moment in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights in the USA. Following its premiere in Boise in 2022, this will be the musical’s European premiere.

Executive Producer and Acting CEO Sofi Berenger said “Less than a year into the new theatre it feels amazing to be able to announce this season of work and present not one, but three new full-length musicals Stalled, King of Pangea and The Show on the Roof, which will mark our first major musical productions in the new theatre; and four brand new plays. I’m especially excited that 50% of our season is written, directed and produced by female or non-binary creatives, and we continue to have predominantly LGBTQ+ work on our stages. This includes Firebird and a repertoire of two new plays by female writers, directors and producers featuring Puppy playing over Lesbian Visibility Week and our former artistic director Hannah Price making her debut on our new stage with (This is not a) Happy Room. And finally, with a Labour government back after 14 years we’re rounding off the season with The Gang of Three. But I can assure you, that’s not all we’re working on and there’s some more exciting casting and other announcements to come.”

Established in 1970, the King’s Head Theatre was the UK’s oldest pub theatre until it closed in August 2023. Last year, the theatre relocated to a new, purpose-built 220-seat auditorium in Islington Square, and it is now entering its second year at the new venue.

This Christmas, the venue will produce their own family friendly pantomime, Cinderella which runs from 30 November 2024 to 5 January 2025.

Book tickets to Cinderella at King’s Head Theatre

King’s Head Theatre – 2025 Spring Season

Firebird – Book tickets here
9 January 2025 – 9 February 2025

Stalled: A New Musical – Book tickets here
13 February 2025 – 23 March 2025

(This is Not a) Happy Room
26 March 2025 – 27 April 2025

Puppy – Book tickets here
1 April 2025 – 27 April 2025

The Gang of Three – Book tickets here
30 April 2025 – 1 June 2025

King of Pangea – Book tickets here
7 June 2025 – 6 July 2025

The Show On The Roof – Book tickets here
11 July 2025 – 16 August 2025

Cinderella

Lyric Hammersmith, London

Book tickets
Cinderella
Main photo: King's Head Theatre - Spring 2025 Season

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