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Dateline: 10th March, 2006
Off-Broadway Musical Send-up Premieres This Month The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!), a hit at the Theatre at Saint Peter's (Lexington Avenue) for the York Theatre Company, is to have its UK premiere at the Sound Theatre in Leicester Square, previewing on 28th March, opening on 31st and running for just four weeks. The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) is a musical about musicals. In a comic satire of musical theatre genres, one story becomes five musicals. Each has the distinctive style of a different master of the form. The collision of the worlds of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kander and Ebb results in an evening of original (although utterly derivative) music and lyrics taking a satirical swipe at that most beloved of all theatrical forms. June, an ingénue who can't pay the rent, is threatened by her evil landlord. Will the handsome leading man come to her rescue? In an evening of variations on a theme, this basic plot is musicalised the way Rodgers and Hammerstein might have envisioned it, taking place in Kansas in August, complete with a Dream Ballet. The story is then re-created in the style of Stephen Sondheim, featuring the landlord of The Woods apartment complex as a tortured, artistic genius who slashes the throats of his tenants in revenge because they don't appreciate his art. When presented in the style of Jerry Herman, the story becomes a splashy star vehicle, while the Andrew Lloyd Webber version is a rock musical, with borrowed themes from Puccini. The story is re-told one last time in the style of Kander and Ebb, set in a speakeasy in Chicago. The show first opened on 16th December, 2003, and garnered rave reviews, being was nominated for five 2004 Drama Desk Awards, including Best Musical, and the 2004 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical and the 2005 Drama League nomination for Best Musical. It subsequently transferred to a commercial run at the new Dodger Stages in New York City on 10th February , 2005, where it ran until 13th November. Additional productions have been mounted at the prestigious Laguna Playhouse in California, and the Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia, among others. It has music by Eric Rockwell and lyrics by Joanne Bogart and both collaborated to write the book. The UK production is directed by Julian Woolford, currently Artistic Director of Sevenoaks Playhouse previously Artistic Director of the Global Search for New Musicals at the International Festival of Musical Theatre in Cardiff. Musical director is Dean Austin, choreographer Steven Harris and designer Ben Stones. The cast are Joanna Ampil (Hair, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon), Geoffrey Abbott (Carousel, Fiddler on the Roof and Scrooge on tour), Susannah Fellows (The Beautiful and the Damned, Mamma Mia!) and Ian McLarnon (Sunday in the Park with George, Pacific Overtures). Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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