Award-winning recording artist Beverley Knight will star as club singer ‘Felicia’ in the Broadway musical Memphis when it opens at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre in October 2014. Preview performances begin on 9 October and opening night is 23 October.
The musical won four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical and has a Grammy Award-winning original score by Bon Jovi founding member David Bryan and a book by Joe DiPietro.
Inspired by true events from the underground dance clubs of 1950s Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis follows the fame and forbidden love of a radio DJ who wants to change the world and a club singer who is ready for her big break.
“David Bryan evokes the powerhouse funk of James Brown, the hot guitar riffs of Chuck Berry, the smooth harmonies of the Temptations and the silken, bouncy pop of the great girl groups of the period,” said Charles Isleworth of the New York Times.
The show is directed by Christopher Ashley and has choreography by Sergio Trujillo. Set designer David Gallo and costume designer Paul Tazewell work alongside lighting designer Howell Binkley and sound designer Ken Travis.
Queen of British Soul Beverley Knight (Felicia) has been one of the UK’s most consistent artists of the past 15 years, scoring several Top 10 albums and selling more than a million albums in the UK. She was awarded an MBE by The Queen in 2007 for her services to British music and her charity work, has won three MOBO Awards, and been nominated for Best Female at the Brit Awards three times and for the Mercury Music Prize twice. In summer 2012, she wowed a one billion viewing audience with the song ‘I Am What I Am’ at the finale of the London 2012 Paralympics Opening Ceremony. Most recently, Knight made her West End debut as Rachel Marron in The Bodyguard at the Adelphi Theatre.
David Bryan (music and lyrics) is a Grammy Award-winning keyboard player and founding member of Bon Jovi. Over the past 26 years the band has sold more than 130 million records and toured the world, playing to millions of people. He won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Composer, the 2010 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Score for Memphis.
Joe DiPietro (book) won two Tony Awards for co-writing Memphis and also won a Drama Desk award for the recent Broadway show Nice Work If You Can Get It. His other plays and musicals include: I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, The Toxic Avenger and The Thing About Men (both winners of the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical) and the Broadway musical All Shook Up.
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