Actor Peter Gerald will join the accomplished international cast taking to the stage at the Theatre Royal Stratford East next month in Café Society Swing, a celebration of the first racially-desegregated jazz club in New York.
Directed by Christian Durham, and packed with jazz, blues, gospel and bebop, Café Society Swing will see Gerald (Little Shop of Horrors, Godspell) take on three roles alongside star vocalists China Moses, Vimala Rowe, Ciyo Brown and Judi Jackson who will make her London stage debut in the production.
The show will also feature the Café Society All Stars, an eight-piece band of leading UK jazz musicians (Dave Bitelli, tenor sax, Tony Kofi, alto, Nathaniel Cross, trombone, Sue Richardson, trumpet, Ciyo Brown, guitar, Miles Danso, bass and Andy Chapman, drums) directed by the show’s author, pianist Alex Webb.
Running from Tuesday 5 to Saturday 16 June 2018, the show tells the story of the ground-breaking jazz club which opened in Greenwich Village in December 1938.
From 1938 to 1949 the venue played host to some of the finest musical talent of the 20th century, including Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie.
Billie Holiday was especially associated with the club, one of the first headliners at the club, it was also the place where the club’s owner Barney Josephson presented her with the classic protest lyric ‘Strange Fruit’ which became her signature song.
Café Society Swing was originally commissioned by the London Jazz Festival and has since played runs at the Tricycle Theatre, the Leicester Square Theatre, 59E59 Theaters in New York, as well as appearing at the Scarborough Jazz Festival, the Aldeburgh Proms and the Gateshead International Jazz Festival.
Angela Thomas
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