The Arts Theatre has announced the young actresses who will share the central role of Tina Denmark in the UK premiere of the award-winning show Ruthless! The Musical.
Fifi Bloomsbury Khier, Charlotte Breen, Anya Evans and Lucy Simmonds will alternate in the role of the devious and deadly eight-year-old at the heart of the action.
They will join the previously announced Dancing On Ice judge Jason Gardiner, Olivier Award winner Tracie Bennett, Lara Denning, Kim Maresca and Harriet Thorpe in the production which will open at London’s Arts Theatre later this month.
Written by Joel Paley and Marvin Laird, the show spoofs classic Broadway musicals including Gypsy and Mame and 1950s film melodramas The Bad Seed and All About Eve.
Directed by Richard Fitch, the new production will play a strictly limited 14-week run beginning with previews from 16 March ahead of a 27 March opening night and final performance on 23 June.
Best known for his role as the straight-talking judge on the ITV celebrity skating show, Gardiner, who began his professional career in the original Australian cast of 42nd Street at the age of 16, will be donning drag to play agent Sylvia St. Croix.
Former Coronation Street star Bennett was most recently seen on stage in the National Theatre’s Follies. A double Olivier Award winner for Hairspray and She Loves Me, the West End and Broadway favourite will play Lita, the drama critic who’s also Tina’s grandmother.
Fresh from her fifth sold-out run in her one-woman show at the prestigious Feinstein’s/54 Below, Maresca will take on the role of Tina’s mother, Judy Denmark, a part she previously played in the show’s most recent Off-Broadway run.
Completing the cast are West End favourites Denning (Scrooge The Musical, Matilda) as Louise Lerman/Eve and Thorpe (Wicked, Cabaret) who will take on the role of Tina’s teacher, Myrna Thorn.
The Arts Theatre production will be choreographed by Rebecca Howell, and designed by Morgan Large, with lighting design by Tim Lutkin, sound design by Gregory Clarke and musical supervision by Gareth Valentine.
The Menier Chocolate Factory will act as executive producer and general manager of the UK premiere, which is presented at the Arts Theatre by Evan Sacks, Darren Bagert, Adam Mackie, Kenneth Schur and Maxine Paul.
The story of beautiful and talented eight-year-old Tina Denmark who will do anything to play the lead in her school play, Ruthless! debuted Off-Broadway in 1992. Starring Laura Bell Bundy, the actress who would go on to play Elle Woods in the Broadway debut of Legally Blonde, the production famously featured Britney Spears and Natalie Portman as understudies. The show was most recently revived Off-Broadway in 2015 with Paley once again directing and Laird as musical supervisor.
Angela Thomas
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