Something truly wonderful is coming our way. Tony Award winner Ruthie Ann Miles is now confirmed to join fellow Broadway stars Kelli O'Hara and Ken Watanabe in the Lincoln Center transfer of THE KING & I. The Rodgers & Hammerstein classic opening at the West End's London Palladium in June and has just extended booking due to demand...
Ruthie Ann Miles will reprise her Tony Award-winning and critically acclaimed Broadway role of Lady Thiang in the West End production of THE KING AND I, which opens at the London Palladium on 21 June 2018, with a press night on 3 July. She will join fellow Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara (Anna) and Tony and Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe (The King) in the Broadway transfer of the multi award-winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s classic musical.
Producers also announced today an extended booking period until 8 September for the show, one of the fastest-selling West End productions of 2018. This builds on THE KING AND I 16-month run at New York’s Lincoln Center Theater and record-breaking USA tour.
Ruthie Ann Miles originated the role of Imelda Marcos in the prestigious Public Theater production of Here Lies Love, for which she received the Lucille Lortel Award and the Theatre World Award. (The musical transferred to the National Theatre in 2014 playing to critical acclaim). For her portrayal of Lady Thiang, the King’s chief wife in THE KING AND I, she won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and the 2015 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Miles, like her lead co-stars, will be making her West End debut when the musical opens in London later this year.
The New York Times said that Miles’ rendition of the iconic song ‘Something Wonderful’ could be the show’s anthem.
Tony Award-winning Bartlett Sher will direct the production, hot on the heels of his work on The Lincoln Center Theater’s World Premiere of JT Rogers’ smash hit play Oslo, which opened on Broadway and then transferred via the National Theatre to London’s Harold Pinter Theatre in October last year. He, along with the creative team behind the award-winning production of South Pacific and the soon-to-open Lincoln Center Theater production of My Fair Lady, will reunite to bring this production to life at the London Palladium.
With music by Richard Rodgers, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, THE KING AND I boasts a score featuring such beloved classics asGetting To Know You, Hello Young Lovers, Shall We Dance, I Have Dreamed, and Something Wonderful. Set in 1860s Bangkok, the musical tells the story of the unconventional and tempestuous relationship that develops between the King of Siam and Anna Leonowens, a British schoolteacher, whom the imperious King brings to Siam to tutor his many wives and children.
Ruthie Ann Miles was last seen on Broadway in Sunday In The Park With George starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford. Off-Broadway, Miles created the role of Imelda Marcos in David Byrne’s discotheque musical Here Lies Love at The Public Theater, receiving both the Lucille Lortel and Theater World Awards. She played in the US National Tour of John Doyle’s revival of Sweeney Todd, as Adolfo Pirelli (on-stage accordion, flute and piano), and reads the NY Times’ Bestselling author Lisa See’s audiobook “The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane”. Notable television credits include playing Young-Hee in the EMMY-nominated Season Four of the Cold War thriller “The Americans”. Miles holds a Masters degree in Music from New York University.
