Broadway legend Bernadette Peters will be appearing in a West End run for the very first time when Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends returns to the West End to play a special limited season at the Gielgud Theatre.
A double Tony Award winner widely regarded as one of the most accomplished interpreters of the legendary composer’s work, Peters (Follies, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park With George) will appear alongside Lea Salonga (Miss Saigon, Les Misérables) who will return to the London stage for the first time in 27 years.
The winner of the 2023 WhatsOnStage award for the Best Theatre Event, the celebration of Sondheim’s timeless work which was devised and produced by Cameron Mackintosh, will play a 16-week season from 16 September 2023 until 6 January 2024.
Peters and Salonga will be joined by a number of stars who featured in the Gala company last year including Christine Allado, Janie Dee, Bonnie Langford and Jeremy Secomb. Joining them will be Beatrice Penny-Touré, Joanna Riding, and Jac Yarrow. Further star casting will be announced soon.
Commenting on the show, Mackintosh said: “Old Friends began its journey to the West End in a conversation I had with Steve during our enforced pandemic isolation – ‘It’s time we did a third show’ said Steve, ‘and complete the trilogy that started with Side By Side By Sondheim in the 1970s, followed by Putting It Together in the ’90s’.
“We commenced work on it but as theatres and shows started to reopen post Covid, we got distracted and then suddenly on Thanksgiving just over a year ago Steve sadly left us, leaving his extraordinary legacy of work to live on forever.
“Over Christmas ’21 I put together all our thoughts, and inspired by the shows I had worked on with him and Julia McKenzie, and the desire to showcase his greatest music as well as his great lyrics, the material of Old Friends miraculously fell onto the page pretty much as it is.
“Thanks to a phenomenal Gala cast, the show proved to be the great celebration we all wanted for our friend and inspiration – performed in the Sondheim Theatre, which I had rebuilt and renamed in his honour. The response to both the show and the subsequent television version recently screened by the BBC over the New Year has been quite overwhelming, so I am thrilled that Broadway legend, Bernadette Peters, one of my favourite old friends, is going to reprise her brilliant performance in what is astonishingly going to be her British stage debut – to be joined by Lea Salonga, who of course became my youngest old friend, when she created a sensation at the age of 17, starring in the original Miss Saigon – this will be her first West End run since Les Misérables 27 years ago.
“Bernadette and Lea head a stellar cast of co-stars, many of whom also appeared in last year’s unforgettable Gala. Steve was always a Broadway Baby at heart, so I’m delighted that I have been able to put together one last great hurrah for my old friend, containing many of the greatest songs ever written for the musical theatre, in one ‘great big Broadway show’ – just as he wanted.”
The original Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends at the Sondheim Theatre sold out within hours with a simultaneous screening at the Prince Edward quickly arranged in response to public demand.
Directed by Matthew Bourne, side by side with Julia McKenzie, the show features choreography by Stephen Mear. The creative team also includes conductor Alfonso Casado Trigo, musical supervisor Stephen Brooker, with musical arrangements by Stephen Metcalfe, set design by Matt Kinley, projection design by George Reeve, lighting design by Warren Letton and sound design by Mick Potter.
Angela Thomas
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