The Sound of Music at the Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury and touring until 22 October. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ It wasn’t long ago that I caught up with this touring production of the much-loved Rodgers and Hammerstein musical in Milton Keynes. Now the Bill Kenwright-produced show is on the road again, with several […]
Tag Archives | Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Allegro has European premiere at Southwark Playhouse
Almost 70 years after Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Allegro opened in 1947 to the highest advance in Broadway history, the musical is finally getting its professional European premiere, produced by Danielle Tarento and directed by Thom Southerland. In 1905 in a small Midwestern town, the wife of a local doctor gives birth to a baby boy, Joseph Taylor Jr. Allegro chronicles nearly four decades in the […]
Kara Tointon plays Maria in ITV’s The Sound of Music Christmas broadcast
Mr Selfridge co-stars and former soap performers Kara Tointon (EastEnders) and Katherine Kelly (Coronation Street) will be among the performers in a special production of The Sound of Music which will be broadcast live on ITV this Christmas. Tointon, who won critical acclaim for her performance in Pygmalion at the Garrick Theatre four years ago, will […]
Royal Academy of Music – Carousel
Carousel was performed by the Royal Academy of Music’s Musical Theatre Company. Star rating: 5 stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Unlike many other Rodgers and Hammerstein titles, from Oklahoma! to The Sound of Music, Carousel was kept in cold storage for more than four decades between its London premiere in 1950 and Nicholas Hytner’s production for the RNT in […]
Broadway Melody: American Songbook Series – Auguste Théatre, Paris
Lauren Van Kempen and Broadway Melody: American Songbook Series at the Auguste Théatre, Paris. The new temple of American musical theatre in Paris seems to be the Auguste Théatre, which has been presenting a monthly American songbook series, beginning earlier this year with a Rodgers and Hammerstein evening, followed by a Gershwin soirée in April and the […]
Carousel – Opera North – Grand Theatre, Leeds and Touring
Carousel, an Opera North production, continues at the Grand Theatre, Leeds until 23 May, and then tours to Norwich, Edinburgh and Dublin. Star rating: 5 stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Music can conjure up some strange associations. ‘The Carousel Waltz’, for example, the eccentric overture to this show, immediately takes me back to the 1960s and the Sunday afternoon radio programme ‘Movie-Go-Round’. […]
The King and I – Vivian Beaumont Theater, New York
The King and I continues at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, New York until 5 July. Star rating: 4 stars ★ ★ ★ ★ Spectacle and charm are served up in generous and equal amounts in Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1951 classic The King and I. The spectacle is evident from […]
The Sound of Music – new tour dates and timelapse video to watch!
New dates have been added to the tour of Bill Kenwright’s production of The Sound of Music, currently playing at the New Wimbledon Theatre until 11 April. The new venues are Newcastle Theatre Royal (31 August to 12 September) and Liverpool Empire (14 to 19 September). (You can also see a timelapse video below of The Sound of Music […]
Oklahoma! – Royal & Derngate, Northampton and Touring
Oklahoma! continues at the Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton until 28 February and then tours until 8 August, 2015. Star rating: 4 stars **** There is a traditional charm that pervades the Royal & Derngate’s Oklahoma! This show, the first collaboration of Rodgers and Hammerstein, is at once dark and glorious, but above all crammed with some of […]
The Sound of Music – Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield and Touring
The Sound of Music continues at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield until 14 February, and then tours until 1 August. Star rating: 3 stars *** The seven hills of Sheffield are alive to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music as Bill Kenwright’s new production comes to the Lyceum Theatre. It is billed as a new staging of the the musical, […]
The Sound of Music – Curve, Leicester
The Sound of Music continues at Curve, Leicester until 17 January 2015. Laura Pitt-Pulford’s Maria in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music whirls round tree trunks and straps a guitar on her back to cycle away from the Abbey. So when, head held high, she sings ‘I Have Confidence in Me’, it has force as well […]
Danielle Hope plays Maria in The Sound of Music tour
Actress and singer Danielle Hope will play the iconic role of Maria von Trapp in a new production of The Sound of Music which opens on Thursday 15 January at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley and then moves to the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton to commence a major national tour. Hope won BBC Television’s Over the Rainbow talent show and as a result […]
Oklahoma! UK and Irish tour – full cast announced
The full cast has been announced for the new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Oklahoma! presented by Music & Lyrics Limited and Royal & Derngate Northampton. From the award-winning producers of the highly successful tours of The King and I and Fiddler On the Roof, this new production will feature Lucy May Barker […]
Allegro – Classic Stage Company, New York
Allegro continues at Classic Stage Company, New York, until 14 December. “Of all the musicals I ever worked on that didn’t quite succeed,” Richard Rodgers writes in his autobiography Musical Stages, “Allegro is the one I think most worthy of a second chance.” Now that show is being given its second chance, thanks to director John […]
Maria Friedman – Back To Before – The Pheasantry
Maria Friedman: Back to Before continues at The Pheasantry, London, until 26 October. Nobody understands the art of cabaret better than Maria Friedman, actress, singer, director and now EastEnder extraordinaire, and her new show, Back to Before, in residence for two weeks at The Pheasantry on Chelsea’s Kings Road, is, as expected, a joy from […]
The King and I – Theatre du Chatelet, Paris
The King And I continues at Theatre du Chatelet, Paris, until 29 July. The World Cup has not been the Chatelet’s best friend for the original-language Paris premiere of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I but the stay-at-homes who missed this exquisite, no-expense-spared masterpiece to snore their way through a goalless French bore-draw made a serious […]
Carousel – Arcola Theatre
Carousel continues at the Arcola Theatre, London, until 19 July. Once cited by Richard Rodgers as his favourite of all his musicals, Carousel, his second major collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II, tells the dark tale of barker Billy Bigelow, who in the course of the show is fired from his job, hits his wife, turns criminal, […]
Morphic Graffiti – A new kind of Carousel
Theatre company Morphic Graffiti, founded by Stewart Charlesworth and Luke Fredericks, is behind a bold new interpretation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, which officially opens tonight at the London fringe Arcola Theatre. Cameron Smith catches up with Stewart Charlesworth… It started with a typo. In 2011 Stewart Charlesworth, along with co-founder Luke Fredericks, created a new production company […]
Carousel – Oper Graz, Austria
Carousel runs in rep at the Oper Graz, Austria until 5 June 2014. Matthias Davids, who in 2012 directed Gigi at the Oper Graz, has returned with the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic Carousel. There are many reasons why this could have been problematic: firstly, because the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein are unfortunately hardly ever […]
Kieran Brown and guests – Union Theatre
Kieran Brown performed Music That Matters with a selection of guest artists at the Union Theatre, London. Beginning with a low-key entrance, and unusually the lights up rather than dimmed, actor and singer Kieran Brown (currently appearing in the Rodgers and Hammerstein piece Pipe Dream at the Union Theatre) opened with a gentle medley of ‘Someone’s Waiting […]
