Blog / New Year Honours
Check here for the latest musical news with links to all your #StageFaves performers, shows and theatres. Also look out for our regular #GetSocial features and contributions from our syndicate media partners including MyTheatreMates.com and the Musical Theatre Appreciation Society.
2016
'Tis the season of Stiles & Drewe. As Half a Sixpence prepares to open in the West End and The Wind in the Willows tours the country, their earlier musical SOHO CINDERS, last seen at Soho Theatre in 2012, is revived Off-West End at the Union Theatre. And the full cast is now announced on #StageFaves...
2016
Following Rent's revival at the St James Theatre this year, next year we'll get a second dose of Jonathan Larson with Aria Entertainment's revival of his early autobiographical piece, first staged after his death, TICK TICK BOOM!, which runs at the Park Theatre in May...
It's official! After increasing rumours - and hints from Mel Brooks - following the death of Gene Wilder in August, it's announced today that YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN will get its West End resurrection in 2017. The 'all-singing, all-dancing' new production of the musical, based on Brooks' cult 1974 film starring Wilder, will have a brief run in Newcastle before transferring to the West End next autumn...
We're feeling more festive at the very thought of it! Just in time for the holidays, American musical ANOTHER NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS gets its UK premiere at the Bridge House Theatre in Penge, south London - with a quartet of West End #StageFaves taking part: George Maguire, Rachael Wooding, Rachel Tucker and Oliver Tompsett...
Ready for some Paradise by the Dashboard Light? Composer Jim Steinman is bringing Meat Loaf's trilogy of BAT OUT OF HELL albums to the musical stage, officially opening at the London Coliseum where the mega-production will have a limited run from 5 June to 22 July 2017. We can't wait to see the #StageFaves casting for this one. Motorcycle skills a prerequisite?
A whole bunch of stuff was announced today by the National Theatre for its 2017 season but for #StageFaves fans there's only one headline: Sondheim classic FOLLIES will be staged at the NT for the first time with a cast led by Imelda Staunton, Philip Quast and Janie Dee...
Following The Wild Party and Whisper House, the third offering in The Other Palace inaugural season is a world premiere musical stage adaptation of Fellini's Oscar-winning Italian film masterpiece LA STRADA. It comes to London after a 16-week national tour, directed by Sally Cookson. Full details and ensemble cast now announced here...
"A role she was born to play," said a Twitter fan about the casting of Frances Ruffelle in The Other Palace's inaugural offering: the first major London production of Michael John LaChiusa's gin-soaked 2000 Broadway musical THE WILD PARTY. We couldn't agree more. Plus, the production is directed and choreographed by Drew McOnie. Pure class....
We can hardly contain ourselves with excitement over today's news about the St James Theatre's rebirth as 'The Other Palace'. Under the ownership of Andrew Lloyd Webber and the artistic direction of Paul Taylor Mills, this is undoubtedly a new mecca for musical lovers. We think #StageFaves fans will be spending an inordinate amount of time here in the months and years to come. It officially launches in February 2017 and the inaugural season is announced today...
We can hardly contain ourselves with excitement over today's news about the St James Theatre's rebirth as 'The Other Palace'. Under the ownership of Andrew Lloyd Webber and the artistic direction of Paul Taylor Mills, this is undoubtedly a new mecca for musical lovers. We think #StageFaves fans will be spending an inordinate amount of time here in the months and years to come. It officially launches in February 2017 and the inaugural season is announced today...
Good things come to those who wait. After more than 15 years in development (did we really read that right?), homegrown musical MY LAND'S SHORE at last receives a full-scale, world-premiere production with a run in the new year at Walthamstow's Ye Olde Rose & Crown, care of All Star Productions...
The tiny, 50-seat Hope Theatre in Islington is best known for its acclaimed play productions. But, as its artistic director Matthew Parker turns his attention to the rarely seen Bryony Lavery musical HER ACHING HEART and brings onboard a West End co-producer, we wonder: could there be more musicals, and more transfers on the cards?
MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET, which had its West End premiere in 2011 after success on Broadway, returns to London for Christmas after extensive UK-wide touring, with a cast of rockabilly #StageFaves playing Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, and the one and only Martin Kemp joining to play the 'father of rock'n'roll' Sam Phillips...
Here come THE GIRLS! What a wonderful assemblage of #StageFaves divas who will be strutting on and stripping off in Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s new British musical. Based on the true story, the film and the award-winning play by Tim Firth, Calendar Girls, THE GIRLS opens in the West End in the new year. Full casting now unveiled...
Best known for its radically modern adaptations of classic plays from the canon, Lazarus Theatre company makes its #StageFaves debut as it turns to musicals. The company, under artistic director Ricky Dukes, will re-imagine THE BEGGAR'S OPERA, John Gay's ground-breaking 1728 musical satire of London, which went on to inspire Brecht's The Threepenny Opera and The Busker's Opera, both staged in London this year...
2016
After the death of Gene Wilder, Mel Brooks has earmarked 2017/8 for a London production of the Young Frankenstein, the musical based on his film which starred Wilder as the Doctor. Far ahead of that though, another American comedy horror from 1974 gets its UK premiere: Richard Foreman and Stanley Silverman's HOTEL FOR CRIMINALS...
MUTED - a musical written by two multi-talented #StageFaves, Tim Prottey-Jones and Tori Allen-Martin - premieres as part of the inaugural season at brand new fringe theatre The Bunker, opening in a former underground car park near London Bridge...
MUTED - a musical written by two multi-talented #StageFaves, Tim Prottey-Jones and Tori Allen-Martin - premieres as part of the inaugural season at brand new fringe theatre The Bunker, opening in a former underground car park near London Bridge...
On Golden Pond has inspired the new musical OUT THERE, which is written by Loserville's Elliot Davis and James Bourne and stars #StageFaves legend Dave Willetts. The full cast is announced for the premiere production, opening at the Union Theatre later this month...
The musical hit factory that is Chichester Festival Theatre churns out one more West End transfer before outgoing artistic director Jonathan Church departs: the joyous new version of HALF A SIXPENCE with massive new #StageFaves star Charlie Stemp, just two years out of drama school, is confirmed for the Noel Coward Theatre this autumn...