Blog / Theatre News
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.
2019
Global smash hit musical Mamma Mia! celebrated its 20th anniversary in London’s West End at the Novello Theatre on 6 April 2019. At the special performance, 13 former ‘Dynamos’ joined in the finale and at the curtain call producer Judy Craymer, director Phyllida Lloyd, book writer Catherine Johnson and ABBA songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus just happened to be there too. How can we resist this show?
What a night for musical theatre at the Olivier Awards with Come From Away and Company each winning four prizes and awards going to the Sondheim show’s Jonathan Bailey and Patti LuPone. Also in the acting honours though were Tina – The Tina Turner Musical’s Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Caroline, Or Change’s Sharon D Clarke. Plus among the performances Six The Musical almost blew the roof off the Royal Albert Hall!
It’s been confirmed that Katharine McPhee will be putting her apron down and bidding farewell to the West End production of Sara Bareilles’ musical Waitress on 15 June 2019. Cue speculation about who will replace her. There are rumours that Lucie Jones is next in line, but we shall have to wait and see!
Good things come to those who wait. Four years after it first opened at Leicester Curve and two years after its London premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary's original British musical adaptation of Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾ transfers to the West End.
2019
The cast for the forthcoming production of LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA at London's Royal Festival Hall is now complete and that cherry on top is the addition of Olivier Award-winner (and current BAFTA Nominee!) Alex Jennings...
Christie Prades starred in ON YOUR FEET on Broadway and is currently touring the US in the conga-fied bio-musical. She now brings her 'Gloria Estefan' to Leicester and London for the UK premiere. Full casting is now announced. Plus, have you watched the show's launch trailer yet?
2019
Just months after Michel Legrand passed away, at the age of 86 on 26 January 2019, his five-time Tony-nominated musical AMOUR receives its professional UK premiere at London's Charing Cross Theatre for a limited 12-week season. Gary Tushaw, Anna O'Byrne and Alisdair Harvey lead the cast. Who's joining them?
A second RuPaul's Drag Race star is racing into their West End debut care of Everybody's Talking About Jamie. After Michele Visage made her premiere last autumn playing Miss Hedge, Bianca Del Rio (aka Roy Haylock) makes his premiere as Hugo/Loco Chanelle this summer... Plus, have you watched Layton Williams in action yet?
Are you ready to make a wish? We're wishing we can be at the Dominion Theatre for the West End premiere of BIG THE MUSICAL, starring Jay McGuiness! Watch the trailer and check out more photos from the show here...
2019
The sun is shining on the London production of Mamma Mia! and the show’s audiences too! Not only has booking been extended to 7 March 2020, but the ABBA-inspired musical will be celebrating its 20 years in the West End with a special ticket lottery. For each day & each performance in April, 20 tickets for £20 will be on offer. Now where did we put our lycra and platforms?
2019
They've sold-out at the Edinburgh Fringe, played to packed houses at the Vaults Festival, run their own all-female comedy night at Southwark Playhouse, and now the ladies of NOTFLIX are back at Underbelly Southbank Festival for a second year, ready to improvise two brand new movie-musicals in front of your very eyes...
The anticipation is properly building in the run up to the biggest night in the theatre calendar and now it has gone up a notch with news that all the nominated musicals will be performing at the Olivier Awards 2019 ceremony on 7 April at the Royal Albert Hall, plus The Lion King and Mamma Mia! will be celebrating 20 years in the West End. Oh, and did we mention that stars like Gloria Estefan and Katharine McPhee will be presenting awards?
Is it ever too early to feel festive? Not for Danny Mac and Dan Burton who will star in the Curve Leicester production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas The Musical when it transfers to the Dominion Theatre for a festive West End season from 15 November 2019 to 4 January 2020. Let it snow?
Fresh from her success as a Strictly Come Dancing finalist, Steps star Faye Tozer is putting on those knockoff Jimmy Choos to play the part of Miss Hedge from 6 May to 3 August 2019 in the ever-popular London production of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at the Apollo Theatre. Will she be in a class of her own?
You couldn’t make it up. Not only is ArtsEd graduate Jac Yarrow making his professional stage debut in the West End, he is doing so at the London Palladium, alongside Sheridan Smith and Jason Donovan, while playing one of the most iconic roles in musical theatre. For Jac is living the dream by playing the lead in the new production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, opening at the London Palladium in June 2019.
Wrap up warm because Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez and Jennifer Lee’s stage adaptation of the Disney favourite Frozen is on its way with the West End production named as the first to open at the newly refurbished Theatre Royal Drury Lane in autumn 2020. Are you ready to let it go?
2019
Queen of the Mist, Michael John LaChiusa’s award-winning musical based on the incredible true story of a groudnbreaking woman, will receive its professional UK premiere at the Jack Theatre next month, when Pint of Wine Theatre Company stage the show from 9-27 April 2019.
2019
Romance is in the air as West End performer, Strictly Come Dancing favourite and TV actor Danny Mac joins the UK touring company of Amélie The Musical, based on the much-loved film, opposite French-Canadian stage and screen star Audrey Brisson as Amélie Poulain. Danny will portray the sweet daydreamer Nino Quincampoix from 22 May 2019, with Chris Jared playing the part during performances at the Watermill Theatre from 11 April to 18 May.
Did you hear the gossip? The multi-talented Peter Polycarpou – well-known for his stage, film and TV performances – has been cast in the role of Don Quixote’s squire, Sancho Panza, alongside Kelsey Grammer’s Don Quixote in the first West End production of Man of the Mancha for 50 years, running at the London Coliseum from 26 April to 8 June 2019. Could that be double trouble?
It’s shaping into quite a cast and we still have several months to wait before the opening! Joining Zizi Strallen’s Mary and Charlie Stemp’s Bert will be Joseph Millson, as Mr George Banks, and the music and stage legend that is Petula Clark, as the Bird Woman (and rumour is Petula’s role may be extended in this staging). Mary Poppins returns home to the West End’s Prince Edward Theatre from 23 October 2019 to 29 March 2020 so get ready.