Sarah Crowe and Rosemary Ashe will be joined by Solihull actress Kirsty Malpass in a new musical Crush which has its UK première at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry.
Penned by Bad Girls and Waterloo Road creator Maureen Chadwick, Crush is a “coming-of-age romp that celebrates schoolgirl friendships and fighting for what you believe in”. It is set in 1963 in Dame Dorothea Dosserdale School for Girls which has a proud tradition of fostering free spirits from all walks of life. So it is a crushing blow when the new headmistress turns out to be a tyrant with strict Victorian values.
Sara Crowe who plays Miss Austen has been in many West End productions. In 1990 she played Sybil in Noël Coward's Private Lives at the Aldwych Theatre for which she won an Olivier Award for best supporting actress. She was Olivier nominated for her role as Jackie Coryton in Hay Fever at the Albery in 1993.
Rosemary Ashe who plays tyrannical headmistress Miss Bleacher was Carlotta in the original production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. In March 2015 she took the role of Grandma Mole in Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ The Musical at Leicester’s Curve.
Kirsty Malpass is glamorous games mistress Miss Givings. She played Coty in Larry Belling’s Stroke of Luck at the Park Theatre, London in 2014 and also appeared in Chariots of Fire at the Gielgud Theatre and Jerry Springer the Opera at the Cambridge Theatre.
A co-production between the Belgrade Theatre and Big Broad Productions, Crush runs in Coventry from Saturday 4 until Saturday 19 September. It then goes on a UK tour.