Simon Friend Entertainment, led by West End, Broadway and UK touring producer Simon Friend, is rebranding as new company Melting Pot.
The company will be led by directors Simon Friend and long-standing colleague Hanna Osmolska.
Simon Friend Entertainment has been running for ten years, founded by Simon Friend, and joined by Hanna Osmolska in 2017.
Their productions include West End, Broadway and international hit Life of Pi, which won five Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards.
The company also produced Oscar and BAFTA Award-winning film The Father starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman.
The new company, Melting Pot, will manage their current production slate, including two companies of Life of Pi playing in the US and China; the UK tours and London return of Ghost Stories, which is playing the Peacock Theatre in London from 30 September; and the UK tours of The Girl on the Train, and Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts.
Also coming up for Melting Pot is a new stage adaptation of David Nicholls’ One Day, with One Day The Musical premiering in Edinburgh.
Later this year Life of Pi will open in Seoul, and the company’s Dolly Parton musical Here You Come Again is set to tour Australia.
Also on the company’s slate is The Battle, a new comedy by John Niven charting the epic feud between rock banks Oasis and Blur, which was announced last August.
Paranormal Activity – A New Haunting Live on Stage, which premiered at Leeds Playhouse last year, will also run in four venues in the US, followed by West End and New York runs. Read more about Paranormal Activity coming to the West End.
A number of announcements about new Melting Pot shows are to follow soon.
Their recent West End and London credits include Second Best at Riverside Studios starring Asa Butterfield); The Real Thing at The Old Vic; and The Crown Jewels at the Garrick Theatre.
Melting Pot will employ over 250 actors, stage managers and technicians across its shows this year, grossing ticket sales of over £60 million.
In December 2024, Friend and Osmolska, alongside Steven Greenhalgh, launched the theatrical licensing agency Theatre Global, which represents professional and amateur rights for shows including Lolita Chakrabarti’s Olivier Award winning adaptation of Life of Pi, Deborah Moggach’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and the Drop The Dead Donkey play, by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin.
Simon Friend and Hanna Osmolska, Co-Directors of Melting Pot, said in a joint statement: “Since the company’s first production in November 2015 we’re proud to say that (18 months of Covid aside) SFE hasn’t had a single week without at least one show we’ve produced and general managed, and often there’s several. However, the company’s output – 38 productions since our inception – is a collective effort, and with a large slate in front of us, working with dozens of artists, as of today the business will be rebranded Melting Pot. The name acknowledges that, as the saying goes, it takes a village to make a show, and each one is the result of many creative efforts.”
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