Keziah Ibe and Hadley Fraser have been cast in the Chichester Festival Theatre production of My Fair Lady. Picture: Craig Sudgen
Casting has been confirmed for Chichester Festival Theatre’s (CFT) first ever production of Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady this summer.
After playing Houdini in Magic at CFT, Hadley Fraser (The Pajama Game, City of Angels) will step into the role of Henry Higgins opposite recent Arts Educational Schools graduate Keziah Ibe who will make her professional debut as Eliza Doolittle. The cast will also include Ben Culleton (Mary Poppins, Les Misérables) as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, Tony Jayawardena (Nye, The Father and the Assassin) as Colonel Pickering, Belinda Lang (The Country Wife, Little Women) as Mrs Higgins, Gary Milner (The Music Man, How to Succeed in Business…) as Alfred Doolittle and Finty Williams (Here & Now, The Baker’s Wife) as Mrs Pearce.
They will be joined by Jonathan Bourne, Nic Cain, Shani Cantor, Mark D’Arcy, Talia Duff, Nicholas Duncan, Zack Guest, Joe Henry, Jennifer Louise Jones, Ella Kora, Reuben Lally, TJ Lloyd, Maggie Lynne, Anna McGarahan, Kody Mortimer, Rachel Stanley and Jessica Vaux.
Running from 6 July to 5 September with a press night on 15 July, the production will be directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, whose previous Chichester productions include The Music Man, Shadowlands and Half a Sixpence.
The set and costumes for My Fair Lady will be designed by Peter McKintosh (Top Hat, South Pacific, Shadowlands), with choreography by Stephen Mear (Gypsy, Mack & Mabel, Kiss Me, Kate). The creative team will also include musical supervisor Stephen Ridley, musical director Cat Beveridge, lighting designer Howard Harrison, sound designer Ian Dickinson and casting director Stuart Burt.
There will be a Dementia Friendly performance on 29 July and a Relaxed Performance on 1 September. A Summer Gala on 28 August will support CFT’s ‘Stage the Future’ fundraising campaign for the next generation of theatre-makers.
Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s glorious musical re-imagining of George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, was first seen on Broadway in 1956. The original Moss Hart-directed production which starred Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison won six Tony Awards including Best Musical and remains in the top 30 longest-running Broadway musicals of all time. Andrews and Harrison also starred in the musical’s West End premiere run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1958.
The enduringly popular 1964 film adaptation starring Harrison reprising his Tony Award-winning performance as Henry Higgins opposite Audrey Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle won eight Academy Awards including the Oscar for Best Picture.
Angela Thomas
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