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Tap Dogs Hits Novello for 12 Weeks, Garcia Stars

Australian dance show Tap Dogs will return to London this summer for a limited 12-week season from 15 June to 5 September 2010 at the West End’s Novello Theatre, where Adam Garcia will tap back into his dance training to lead the all-male cast.

Dressed in Blundstone boots and jeans, the six muscly men of Tap Dogs tap, stomp, jump and splash their way through the show that combines workman poser with precision, high energy, and raw and raunchy routines.

Tap Dogs was created by choreographer Dein Perry and started with men from a steel town north of Sydney. It had its world premiere at the Sydney Theatre Festival in January 1995 before receiving its European premiere at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival. Since then, the show has been seen live by more than 11 million people around the globe, won 11 major awards, including an Olivier for Best Choreography, and took part in the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. It was last in London, at Sadler’s Wells, in 2001.

Australian-born stage and screen star Adam Garcia collaborated with Dein Perry (pre Tap Dogs), co-founding the All Tap Company, in Sydney early in his career and later appeared in Perry’s 2000 film Bootmen. He made his West End debut with the transfer of Australian hit Hot Shoe Shuffle in 1994, which he has followed with periodic musical credits here including Birdy, Saturday Night Fever, On the Town and Wicked. He’s best known to film fans from the likes of Coyote Ugly, Riding in Cars with Boys and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and has also recently featured as a regular judge on Sky TV series Got to Dance.

Garcia is joined in the Tap Dogs company by Douglas Mills, who has been with the show since the first London outing in 1995, as well as Matthew Papa, Richie Miller, Donovan Helma, Jesse Rasmussen and Jason Lewis.

The show is staged by the entire original creative team, with design and direction by Nigel Triffitt, music by Andrew Wilkie and lighting by Gavin Norris. It’s presented by Liz Koops for Back Row Productions.

Currently at the Novello, Debbie Allen’s all-black production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, starring James Earl Jones and Adrian Lester, finishes on 10 April and is followed by Grumpy Old Women Live 2 - Chin Up Britain, led by comedian Jenny Eclair, from 14 April to 5 June (See News, 1 Mar 2010).

- by Terri Paddock

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