Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
The record-breaking Heathers – The Musical will feature a new song and a re-worked script when it arrives at the Theatre Royal Haymarket next month.
Due move to the bigger stage in the heart of the West End for a strictly limited run from 3 September 2018, audiences for the final performances of the European premiere run at The Other Palace were treated to a sneak preview of leading lady Carrie Hope Fletcher’s new song ‘I Say No’ and the updated script.
Announcing the changes to the highest-grossing show in history at both Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Other Palace and the venue’s previous incarnation the St. James Theatre, producer Paul Taylor-Mills said: “Two years ago Andrew Lloyd Webber and I set on a mission to create a space in the UK where musicals could be tried and tested with audience feedback at the heart of that development.
“I am so pleased to say that a year and a half later we have been able to see Heathers go from The Other Palace studio, to the main house, to the West End. This isn’t a new idea with many major American musicals affording themselves an out-of-town try out in order to refine the material before the version the team want to present is ‘cooked’!
“Over the last few weeks the creative team and I have been working hard to make changes to the production, including a new number for Veronica at the end of the show, and some script changes to Act II. We’re delighted with the work that has been done and that the show was able to finish its the run at The Other Palace as the definitive version of Heathers.
“We feel fortunate to have had this incredibly useful space to develop the show and would like to thank our audiences for affording us this opportunity. It’s crucial that we develop a practice in the UK for this to happen in order to ensure the genre of musicals in this country continues to prosper.”
A record-breaker at The Other Palace within days of tickets first going on sale, over 20,000 tickets were sold across the run which was sold out even before the opening gala performance.
The first show at The Other Palace to move from a studio workshop to a main house production, the show becomes the first from Lloyd Webber’s newest theatre to celebrate a West End transfer.
Credited with attracting a new generation of theatregoers, the majority of the audience (70%) was found to be under the age of 30, the show’s transfer season will aim to develop its younger and more diverse audience-base by offering over 15,000 seats priced at £25 across the run.
Based on the cult classic Eighties film Heathers which starred Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, Heathers – The Musical stars Hope Fletcher and Jamie Muscato.
Also returning for the transfer run will be the school’s reigning ‘It Girls’ – The Heathers are Jodie Steele (Chandler), T’Shan Williams (Duke) and Sophie Isaacs (McNamara), alongside Chris Chung (Kurt Kelly), Dominic Anderson (Ram Sweeney), Jenny O’Leary (Martha Dunnstock), Rebecca Lock (Ms. Flemming), Jon Boydon (Kurt’s Dad), Alex James Hatton (Officer Milner), Charlotte Jaconelli (Stoner Chick), Lauren Drew (New Wave Girl), Olivia Moore (Young Rerepublicanette) and Sergio Pasquariello (Officer McCord).
They will be joined for the West End run by Hugh Maynard (Ram’s Dad), John Lumsen (Hipster Dork) and Merryl Ansah (Drama Cub Drama Queen).
With music, lyrics and book by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy and 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.
Arriving in the UK following successful runs in the US in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, and in Sydney Australia, the production is produced by the team behind another film to stage musical Carrie in 2015, Bill Kenwright and Taylor Mills.
The director of the workshop Andy Fickman directs the show with which he has been involved since its conception. Working with screenwriter Waters, Fickman brought in Legally Blonde’s O’Keefe and Murphy, the writer who worked with Fickman on the musical version of the 1930s satire Reefer Madness which premiered in LA in 1998.
Featuring new material exclusively written for the London production Murphy and O’Keefe, the creative team includes choreographer Gary Lloyd, designer David Shields, lighting designer Ben Cracknell and sound designer Dan Samson, with casting by Will Burton.
Angela Thomas
Tickets for Heathers – The Musical are available HERE
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