Danny Mac and Emma Williams are to return to Leicester’s Curve theatre in Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.
Mac played Joe Gillis in Curve’s production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard in 2017 for which he received the Manchester Theatre Award for best actor in a visiting production. In White Christmas, he will take the role of Bob Wallace who delivers the musical’s titular song.
Williams, who appeared in Curve’s world première of Douglas Day Stewart and Sharleen Cooper Cohen’s An Officer and a Gentleman the Musical, will play one half of the all-singing, all-dancing sister duo, Betty Haynes.
Curve’s chief executive Chris Stafford and artistic director Nikolai Foster said, “it’s shaping up to be another eccentric year, with much turbulence and uncertainty close to home and across the globe. White Christmas undoubtedly represents the very best festive escapism, guaranteed to banish all blues and nourish the soul with some of the greatest songs and dance sequences ever written.
“Berlin’s magnificent score—some of the finest created for the American songbook—are woven around a suitably madcap, exuberant and funny story.
“At the end of a wonderful year of tenth anniversary celebrations, we’re proud to have brought together a cracking cast for our most ambitious Christmas production to date.”
Playing Betty Haynes’s sister Judy is Monique Young while Dan Burton joins Danny Mac in the ex-army turned showbiz double act. Garry Robson, who appeared in the Nottingham Playhouse and Ramps on the Moon production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good earlier in 2018 and Graeae’s presentation of Paul Sirett and Ian Dury’s Reasons to be Cheerful in 2010, will play retired US Army General Henry Waverly, with Wendy Mae Brown as his big-hearted housekeeper.
The rest of the cast comprises Michael Anderson, making his professional debut as Marty, Delycia Belgrave (Rita), Chantel Bellew (Loretta), Luke Byrne (Mark), Sophie Camble (Gale), Roger Dipper (Ralph Sheldrake), Nicholas Duncan (Jim), Davide Fienauri (Scooter), Nia Jermin (Gloria), Robbie McMillan (Dean), Jo Morris (Connie), Sam Murphy (Mike), Alex Tranter (Jimmy), Sion Tudor Owen (Ezekiel Foster), Alexandra Waite-Roberts (Tessie) and Bleu Woodward (Rhoda).
Ellie Copping, Lucie Ellard, Macy Grundy and Georgia Stewart will share the role of Susan Waverly, the General’s granddaughter. They will be joined by members of the Curve Young Company who will play soldiers and their wives.
Foster directs. Choreography will be by Stephen Mear. White Christmas will run from Thursday 6 December until Sunday 13 January 2019. Press night be will Friday 14 December.