Christina Bennington and Jordan Luke Gage will take on the starring roles in the eagerly-anticipated West End return of Heathers The Musical this summer.
Bennington (Bat Out of Hell, Dominion Theatre, Oklahoma! UK tour) will play Veronica Sawyer opposite Gage (& Juliet, Shaftesbury Theatre) in the production which will also feature Jodie Steele (Six UK tour, Hair, Turbine Theatre) who will re-visit her portrayal of Heather Chandler. They will be joined by Bobbie Little (Little Shop of Horrors, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, High Fidelity, Turbine Theatre) as Heather Duke and Frances Mayli McCann (Evita, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Les Misérables, UK and international tour) as Helen McNamara.
The West End cast will also include Lauren Ward (Dear Evan Hansen, Noël Coward Theatre), Madison Swan (The Book of Mormon, Prince of Wales Theatre), Simon Bailey (We Will Rock You, Dominion Theatre), Joaquin Pedro Valdes (Miss Saigon, UK and international tour) and Steven Serlin (Preludes, Southwark Playhouse). Further casting will be announced at a later date.
Presented by Bill Kenwright and Paul Taylor-Mills, the critic and crowd-pleasing show is due to return to the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 21 June for a strictly limited 12-week run, ending on 11 September.
The West End encore run will begin just a few weeks before the musical embarks on its first tour of the UK and Ireland, opening at Leeds Grand Theatre with a three-week season from 28 July.
As previously announced the touring cast will feature Rebecca Wickes as Veronica Sawyer with Simon Gordon as JD, Maddison Firth as Heather Chandler, Merryl Ansah as Heather Duke and Lizzy Parker as Heather McNamara. The cast will also include Mhairi Angus, Andy Brady, Callum Connolly, Liam Doyle, Georgina Hagen, Bayley Hart, Kurt Kansley and Daisy Twells.
Following the opening run in Leeds, the production will head for Liverpool, Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Birmingham, Canterbury, Bristol, Belfast, Dublin, Manchester, Milton Keynes, High Wycombe, Cardiff and Edinburgh.
A record-breaker at London’s The Other Palace within days of tickets first going on sale, Heathers The Musical was the first show at The Other Palace to move from a studio workshop to a main house production before becoming the first production from the venue to celebrate a West End transfer in 2018.
A re-working of the cult classic Eighties film Heathers which starred Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, Heathers The Musical features music, lyrics and book by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy.
Based on Daniel Waters’ original screenplay for Michael Lehmann’s dark tale of murderous teenage angst, Heathers The Musical was initially presented at The Other Palace in workshop form in 2017 as the venue’s first Work in Progress production.
The musical which arrived in the UK following successful runs in the US in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, and in Sydney Australia, is produced in the UK by Kenwright and Taylor Mills, the team behind London’s Turbine Theatre.
Featuring new material exclusively written for the London production by Murphy and O’Keefe, the UK productions are both directed by the show’s original Off-Broadway director Andy Fickman. Choreography is by Gary Lloyd, with design by David Shields, lighting design by Ben Cracknell and sound by Dan Samson.
Angela Thomas
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