Blog / Off-West End
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.
When you know someone can do the job, why wouldn't you ask them back? After Rachel Tucker's current tenth birthday return run in WICKED, another popular former 'Elphaba', Dutch star Willemijn Verkaik, flies back into the show - along with 'Madame Morrible' returnee Sue Kelvin and new 'Nessarose' Sarah McNicholas - in the new year...
On Friday, Haydn Oakley was announced for the UK premiere of An American in Paris in the West End. Five days later, he's announced to star in another UK premiere of another Broadway musical, SIDE SHOW, in which he'll star next month alongside 'conjoined twins' Louise Dearman and Laura Pitt Pulford at Southwark Playhouse. Busy man! Full SIDE SHOW casting is announced today...
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...
You're never too old to become a #StageFave. At the age of 70, Jane Asher is adding her West End musical debut to an extraordinary list of credits in a career spanning six decades. She'll play Madame Baurel in the Broadway transfer of AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. She joins the show's already-announced Broadway stars and a host of other #StageFaves, including Haydn Oakley, Zoe Rainey, David Seadon-Young and Ashley Day...
David Fynn is swapping his TV comedy roles in the likes of The Inbetweeners, Sherlock, Game of Thrones and Undateable to play Dewey Finn (a distant, fictional relation?) in the Broadway transfer of Andrew Lloyd Webber's SCHOOL OF ROCK. He's joined by a band of #StageFaves stalwarts and 39 child actor-musicians found after a nationwide search...
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...
The hit West End production of Wicked is now booking until 4 November 2017, it has been announced as the new cast begin performances in the show...
She became a star overnight stepping up as Sheridan Smith's understudy in FUNNY GIRL, and now Natasha J Barnes is headlining a West End show in her own right. This CINDERELLA will go to the ball at the London Palladium in December...
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...
2016
She just finished a long run in SHOW BOAT in the West End on Saturday and before than Sheffield, but Rebecca Trehearn isn't taking a break. She's back treading the musical boards in a few weeks starring alongside Ashley Robinson in Jonathan Butterell's new production of FLOYD COLLINS at Wilton's Music Hall. Full cast and creatives now announced...
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...
Do Broadway musicals get better than Bernstein? The great composer's 1953 classic WONDERFUL TOWN gets a chamber production overhaul care of All Star Productions and director Tim McArthur at Ye Olde Rose and Crown in October...
How can you not have a whale of a time with a cast that includes powerhouse personalities like Brenda Edwards and Anton Stephans, both former X Factor finalists? They're amongst the full company of #StageFaves announced for the 25th anniversary revival of cult musical comedy MOBY DICK! at the Union Theatre...
We've got him back! After his recent Broadway run, reprising his role as Javert in Les Miserables, Earl Carpenter returns to the London stage in October to star alongside Anita Louise Combe and a #StageFaves-stuffed ensemble cast in Thom Southerland's revival of RAGTIME at Charing Cross Theatre...
2016
Many #StageFaves make the running in this year's third annual West End Wilma Awards, for which the nominations are announced today ahead of public voting opening on 2 September 2016 and the awards ceremony on 4 November 2016.
We'll be singing the "Lullaby of Broadway" at the top of our voices in the West End next year when this big-budget blockbuster revival of comedy classic 42nd STREET, directed by the show's author, hits the 2,100-seat Theatre Royal Drury Lane...
Stage Traffic Productions in association with the Park Theatre will present the world premiere of the new musical This Little Life Of Mine for a limited season, running 4 to 29 October 2016. The full cast is now announced...
Show Boat won't be the only Broadway classic shuttering in the West End this month. Chichester Festival transfer GUYS AND DOLLS has posted closing notices at the Phoenix Theatre for 21 August 2016, at the end of Hollywood's Rebel Wilson acclaimed stint as Miss Adelaide...
He broke records as the longest-running West End star as Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys. Now Ryan Molloy helps premiere a new British rock musicals about stars whose careers are cut short... at the age of 27. Cassie Compton, Greg Oliver and Jack Donnelly join him in 27, directed by Arlene Phillips at the Cockpit Theatre in September...