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Tompsett & Lipkin Join Full Rock of Ages CastDate: 16 June 2011
West End stars Oliver Tompsett and Amy Pemberton will play the leads of small-town boy and girl Drew and Sherrie who fall in love in the West End premiere of Rock of Ages, which opens at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 27 September 2011 (previews from 31 August).
They and fellow West End regular Simon Lipkin join, as previously announced, TV and radio presenter Justin Lee Collins and former X Factor winner Shayne Ward in the production, the full company of which is announced today.
Ahead of the show’s September opening, the cast – including Ward, Tompsett (best known from his long stint as Fiyero in Wicked), Pemberton (Footloose, Jersey Boys) and Lipkin (Avenue Q) – will be performing three of the show’s songs – “Dead or Alive”, “High Enough” and “Don’t Stop Believin’” – this weekend at West End Live, the annual free theatre festival, held this year in Trafalgar Square.
Set in 1987 on the Sunset Strip and billed as an “arena-rock love story”, Rock of Ages centres on Drew, a busboy and aspiring rocker who chases his dreams to Los Angeles’ most famous rock club, where he meets a small-town girl newly arrived from Kansas, named Sherrie.
Rock of Ages incorporates period glam-rock music from the likes of Bon Jovi, Journey, Whitesnake, Poison and Pat Benatar, including over 20 hits such as “Sister Christian”, “I Wanna Rock”, “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, “Come on Feel the Noize”, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”, “The Final Countdown” and “Don’t Stop Believin’” , “Dead or Alive”, “We Built This City”, “I Wanna Know What Love Is” and “The Final Countdown”.
The musical, which has a book by Chris D'Arienzo, premiered in LA in 2006. It opened Off-Broadway in October 2008, before transferring to Broadway’s Brooks Atkinston Theater in April 2009 and, subsequently, the Helen Hayes Theater. The show is currently being made into a film, starring Tom Cruise, Russell Brand, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Alec Baldwin.
The London cast will also feature Rohan Tickell, Rachel McFarlane, Jodie Jacobs and Sandy Moffat, as well as Nathan Amzi, Grant Anthony, Cordelia Farnworth, Twinnie-Lee Moore, Andrew Spillett, Amy Thornton, Natalie Andreou, Carly Mercedes Dyer, Ian McIntosh, Jamie Muscato, Zizi Strallen and Dylan Turner.
Rock of Ages is directed by Kristin Hanggi, choreographed by Kelly Devine and designed by Beowulf Boritt, with costumes by Gregory Gale, lighting by Jason Lyons, sound by Peter Hylenski, projection by Zachary Borovay and music supervision by Ethan Popp.
- by Terri Paddock
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