Blog / West End Calling
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
It’s a busy time for lots of our #StageFaves as rehearsals started this week for BAT OUT OF HELL, PROMISES and DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY as well as continuing for GIRLS and so many other productions we’re looking forward to in 2017! To celebrate all the long hours and energy that goes into making great shows here are some of our favourite rehearsal tweets...b
2016
Our #FirstNightTakeover series continues with Perry O'Bree attending the opening (on 13 December 2016) of the 20th anniversary revival of Jonathan Larson's RENT, which, following a short tour, has now transferred - and already sold out! - at London's St James Theatre.
Producer Paul Taylor Mills and director Luke J Sheppard reunite for the first time since their Olivier Award-winning success with In the Heights for the British premiere of MURDER FOR TWO, which is the inaugural production in the soon-to-be-renamed The Other Palace Studio (currently the St James Studio)...
2016
There are SO many fantastic #StageFaves announced to join Frances Ruffelle in Michael John LaChiusa's THE WILD PARTY, we hardly know where to start - Donna McKechnie, John Owen Jones, Simon Thomas, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, Tiffany Graves, Ako Mitchell, Lizzy Connolly and more. Safe to say: the rebranded The Other Palace is launching in stellar style...
2016
Dust off your dancing shoes and grab a watermelon! It’s the first performance of DIRTY DANCING at the West End's Phoenix Theatre tonight, returning for a Christmas run in London before another UK tour in 2017. We’re sending lots of #stagey love to everyone and rounding up our top ten countdown-to-opening tweets from #StageFaves cast members...
It's sad when a headliner has to withdraw from a show, as Ciara Renee has done with LIZZIE due to a scheduling conflict. But when the fallback is a mega Broadway star like Eden Espinosa, there's reason to celebrate too. She'll now join the quartet of #StageFaves in the UK premiere of the axe-wielding Lizzie Borden musical in February...
2016
#StageFaves founder Terri Paddock found her festive spirit this weekend with a trip to the Bridge House Theatre to see the UK premiere (in an Anglicised version) of US musical two-hander ANOTHER NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. She talked Santa topics with the show's stars, George Maguire on the (heavily blue-lit) set after the show...
After Titanic and Ragtime, Thom Southerland and Danielle Tarento's Charing Cross Theatre season of musicals continues in January with DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY. Today, the full cast - led by Maxwell Caulfield, Zoe Doano and Chris Peluso - is announced...
2016
In the past we’ve seen planking and the ice bucket challenge, and now the #MannequinChallenge is sweeping Twitter. Here are seven of the best #StageFaves making like musical statues. Well done to the cast of LES MISERABLES for managing two! Which of your #StageFaves would you like to see take the #MannequinChallenge next?
2016
Big treat for Sondheim fans next year - even before Follies at the National. His rarely seen take on Aristophanes' THE FROGS gets an outing in March at Jermyn Street Theatre. This is the UK premiere of the post 9/11 version, with a revised and expanded book by Nathan Lane...
Was THE SORROWS OF SATAN the 50 Shades of Grey of its day? Marie Corelli's original novel is regarded as one of the world's first modern bestsellers and caused controversy when it was first published in 1895 (it was one of Oscar Wilde's fave reads, dontcha know). Now it gets musical treatment care of British writers Bateman & Conley...
Director Bruce Guthrie had never seen RENT before tackling the 20th anniversary production, opening at London's St James Theatre next week. What does he think of Jonathan Larson's legacy and his cast of #StageFaves giving the show new life? Musical Theatre Review's Rebecca Gordon interviewed him...
What's been your favourite musical theatre album this year? Make sure it - and the #StageFaves talent behind it - gets the recognition it deserves. The Curtain Up Show, on Resonance FM, is running its Album of the Year prize for a second year in a row, now with three categories and all decided by public vote. Nominees announced this Friday at 4pm...
What's been your favourite musical theatre album this year? Make sure it - and the #StageFaves talent behind it - gets the recognition it deserves. The Curtain Up Show, on Resonance FM, is running its Album of the Year prize for a second year in a row, now with three categories and all decided by public vote. Nominees announced this Friday at 4pm...
2016
Black Friday 2016 (25 November) lived up to its name after a power surge plunged the West End into darkness. Several shows - including musicals ALADDIN, LES MISERABLES, JERSEY BOYS and THRILLER LIVE - had to be cancelled and many more were delayed. We’re rounded up some of our fave tweets - with videos, photos and other reactions - showing how #StageFaves were affected on the night...
Play versions of A CHRISTMAS CAROL are a festive staple. This year, London theatregoers also have two opportunities to see Alan Menken and Lynn Ahrens' Broadway musical version of Charles Dickens' classic story. London Musical Theatre Orchestra mounts a stellar concert presentation led by Robert Lindsay in the West End, while Wandsworth's LOST Theatre presents a full Off-West End production over the Christmas fortnight itself...
Play versions of A CHRISTMAS CAROL are a festive staple. This year, London theatregoers also have two opportunities to see Alan Menken and Lynn Ahrens' Broadway musical version of Charles Dickens' classic story. London Musical Theatre Orchestra mounts a stellar concert presentation led by Robert Lindsay in the West End, while Wandsworth's LOST Theatre presents a full Off-West End production over the Christmas fortnight itself...
Newcomer Charlie Stemp is now officially a West End star after rave reviews for the London transfer of HALF A SIXPENCE this past week. And the show - reworked by Cameron Mackintosh, book writer Julian Fellowes, and Stiles and Drewe - is officially a mega hit, with booking now extended at the Noel Coward Theatre until April...
2016
Theatre Royal Stratford East's 2017 season will include the European premiere of The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Kirsten Childs' award-winning musical about a young black girl battling racism and sexism in the US...
BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO ... you know it! And so did Neil Sedaka. The musical of the same name, featuring other top easy-listening tunes by Sedaka, will get its London premiere in the new year....