Liberty Buckland will play the title role in the world premiere of the new musical Yarico at the London Theatre Workshop
Final casting and the full creative team have been revealed today for the world premiere of Yarico, an epic musical about forbidden love, betrayal and redemption, based on a true story that fired the world’s imagination and contributed to the social movement against the slave trade.
Yarico, with book and lyrics by Carl Miller, music by James McConnel and lyrics by Paul Leigh, will run from 17 February to 14 March at Fulham’s new bijou theatre, London Theatre Workshop. (Press nights are 25 and 26 February).
Liberty Buckland (Yarico) trained at the Royal Academy of Music. Yarico is Buckland’s professional stage debut. Alex Spinney (Inkle) also trained at the Royal Academy of Music. His theatre roles include: Our House (UK tour) and Cinderella, the Rock n Roll Panto (Stafford Gatehouse Theatre), and he performed as a soloist in Adam Guettel and Maria Friedman in Concert (Ambassadors Theatre).
Melanie Marshall (Ma Cuffe) has appeared in several West End musicals including playing FELA! (National Theatre, New York and world tour), Porgy and Bess (Trevor Nunn/Savoy Theatre), Fame (Aldwych Theatre) and Simply Heavenly (Trafalgar Studios). She was The Mikado in Craig Revel Horwood’s Hot Mikado (Watermill Theatre/UK tour). Tori Allen-Martin (Nono) has featured in Hair (European Tour), After the Turn (The Courtyard), Rent (The Cockpit) and ZIP (The Lion and Unicorn).
Jean-Luke Worrell (Cicero) was in Robin Hood (Hackney Empire). Michael Moulton (Bartholomew) featured in the West End musical Daddy Cool (ShaftesburyTheatre) as well as Horrible Histories (UK tour/Hong Kong), Finian’s Rainbow (Union and Charing Cross Theatre), Parade (Edinburgh Fringe Festival) and Exhibit B (The Vaults). Keisha Amponsa Banson’s (Jessica) theatre roles include West End musicals City of Angels (Donmar Warehouse), The Pajama Game and From Here to Eternity (both Shaftesbury Theatre).
Michael Mahony (Frank) recently graduated with a degree in acting from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Suzanne Ahmet (Polly) most recently performed in Women of Hope, a verbatim piece of music theatre with Arora Arts. Adam Vaughan’s (Lord Goodley) theatre credits include roles in Sweeney Todd (Adelphi Theatre) and From Here to Eternity (Shaftsbury Theatre) and Charlotte Hamblin (Lady Goodley) has appeared in As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Dickon (all Oxford Shakespeare Company).
Yarico, an Amerindian beauty, is a young woman with great dreams and a fierce, independent spirit… When Inkle, the third son of a British merchant is shipwrecked on her island, he faces certain death at the hands of the islanders. In a courageous act, Yarico intervenes and saves him from his fate, marking the beginning of an extraordinary love story, which ultimately takes them to the island of Barbados.
Bringing the story of Yarico to the stage has been a ten-year labour of love for producers John Kidd and his daughter Jodie, the model and UK TV presenter, who both have strong connections to Barbados, where they have a family home. To bring this forgotten story to a modern audience, John and Jodie have commissioned Yarico, which is based on the known facts of the original story.
The creative team includes director Emily Gray, musical director Zara Nunn, set and costume designer Sarah Beaton, choreographer Jeanefer Jean-Charles and lighting designer Matt Haskins.
Carl Miller (book and lyrics) adapted Erich Kästner’s Emil and the Detectives for the National Theatre. His mini-opera Precipitation with music by Helen Chadwick was part of the Tête-à-Tête festival, and his adaptation of Keith Gray’s Ostrich Boys is being produced by the National Theatre Company of Korea in Seoul. Miller advised on the exploration of the Georgian theatre repertoire – which is where he first came across Colman and Arnold’s 1787 version of Inkle and Yarico.
James McConnel (music) won the 1987 Vivian Ellis Prize for young writers for the musical stage (with Kit Hesketh Harvey) for his first musical, Orlando. Since then he has written extensively for the theatre, including the musicals Killing Rasputin (Bridewell), The Canterville Ghost (Britten Theatre), Inkle and Yarico in Concert (Edinburgh Festival, Crampton Theatre, Washington DC), Doctor Livingstone, I Presume? (Riverside Studios) and New Edna, The Millennial Musical (UK tour and West End) starring Dame Edna Everage. He has also composed the scores for over 100 TV documentaries and dramas and two feature films.
Paul Leigh (lyrics) studied under Stephen Sondheim in Oxford in 1990. His other work includes: with George Stiles, Moll Flanders (numerous UK productions, including Lyric Hammersmith and Theatre Royal York; won Best Musical, Regional Theatre Awards, for York production), Tom Jones (Theatre Royal York), The Three Musketeers (major prize at the first Musical of the Year competition in Aarhus; European premiere, St Gallen, 1999; US premiere, San Jose, 2001; subsequent productions in Boston, Chicago, and the Rose Theatre, Kingston); with James McConnell, Inkle and Yarico in Concert (Holders Season, Barbados; 1999 Edinburgh Festival) and Dr Livingstone, I Presume? (Riverside Studios). Leigh is a founder member of Mercury Musical Developments.
Emily Gray (director) studied directing at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, having graduated from Cambridge University, prior to embarking on a career of directing musicals, opera, new plays and devised work nationally and internationally. Her expertise lies in developing new work and movement direction. Gray is presently the artistic director of Trestle Theatre, a mask and physical theatre company, and she has held roles as artistic director of TAG Theatre Company Glasgow and associate director at Unicorn Theatre London. In 1996 she won a Channel 4 Bursary and became associate director at Nottingham Playhouse. Her productions include The Birthday of the Infanta, The Glass Mountain, Lola: The Life of Lola Montez, Little India (Trestle international tours), Love Like Salt (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow), Great Expectations (Unicorn UK tour), Alice in Wonderland and Pinocchio (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Les Misérables (City Hall Bermuda), Cosi Fan Tutti (Corn Exchange, Newbury), The World Goes ‘Round and The Sound of Music (West Yorkshire Playhouse, associate director), West Side Story (number one tour director).
www.londontheatreworkshop.co.uk
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