Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens continues at the Union Theatre, London – until 8 June 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ It is easy to forget, in these days of effective drug treatments, that life for HIV-positive people was so very different 30 years ago. There was no drug […]
Tag Archives | Bill Russell
Unexpected Joy – Southwark Playhouse
Unexpected Joy continues at Southwark Playhouse, London until 29 September 2018. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The European Premiere of Bill Russell and Janet Hood’s new musical Unexpected Joy is an… Unexpected Joy! Following the Off-Broadway premiere earlier this year producers Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment and Jim Kierstead for Kierstead Productions have brought […]
A passionate woman: New musicals champion & producer Katy Lipson brings Unexpected Joy & the From Page to Stage festival to the Southwark Playhouse
The European premiere of Unexpected Joy, opening this week at the Southwark Playhouse, tells the story of three generations of female singers and their week together to try and clear some long-held family feuds. Joy is a baby boomer pop star, who lived the hippie life and is now preparing for a concert to honour […]
London’s Aria Entertainment and New York’s Jim Kierstead announce new producing deal
Award-winning producer Katy Lipson has announced a major new transatlantic partnership with Tony and Olivier Award-winning theatre and film producer Jim Kierstead. Aimed at developing and presenting new and ground-breaking work on both sides of the Atlantic, the partnership between Aria Entertainment and Kierstead Productions will launch with a co-production of the new musical Unexpected […]
Pageant – London Irish Centre
Pageant continues at the London Irish Centre until 26 August. Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ Back in 1991, when Pageant opened Off-Broadway, the concept of a beauty pageant populated by drag queens may have seemed novel. That novelty may also have sustained it into its 2000 run at the Vaudeville Theatre, […]
Pageant musical to play Camden Fringe
Musical writer and director Bill Russell’s comic vision of the world of beauty contests, Pageant, will return to the UK this summer with one run in London and another in Poole. The brand new production of the show, which will also be directed by Russell (Side Show, Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens), will […]
Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens – Criterion Theatre
Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens at the Criterion Theatre, London. Star rating: 4 stars ★ ★ ★ ★ Started in 1985, the AIDS Memorial Quilt memorialises the lives lost to HIV with a series of personalised panels that, as they have become stitched together, form the largest – and yet most intimate – piece of public art […]
Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens staged in West End in aid of The Make a Difference Trust
Tickets are now on sale for a West End revival of the song cycle Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens, taking place at the Criterion Theatre on Sunday 31 May 2015. More than 30 of the West End’s most talented performers will take to the stage for the special ‘one night only’ performance in aid […]
Side Show – St. James Theatre, New York
Side Show continues at the St. James Theatre, New York. The revival of Side Show, the enigmatic musical from 1997 that won rave notices but couldn’t sell tickets, has opened on Broadway heralded by a new avalanche of critical acclaim. This new production, described as reinvented and reimagined, tested the waters with runs in San […]
Broadway and Off-Broadway season – we preview what’s ahead
Ron Cohen writes: It’s almost autumn in New York but the thrill of first-nighting (as Vernon Duke expressed it in his classic song) won’t be felt on Broadway – at least as far as musicals are concerned – until mid-October when the first one of the fall opens, a revival of the enduring 1944 landmark On the Town. […]
