New musicals festival From Page to Stage line-up announced

The line-up for this year's From Page to Stage new musicals festival has been announced.

The event returns for the sixth year in September 2018 and will take place at Southwark Playhouse. Selected to be presented as rehearsed readings are The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit by Andre Catrini and Allan Knee, Cult! by Tasha Taylor Johnson and To Paint the Earth by Jonathan Portera and Daniel Frederick Levin.

The remaining musicals that will be performed as part of the showcase evening are Villages by Drew Dillon, Benjamin Button by Natalie Tenenbaun and Brett Boles, Smoke by Darren Rapier and Sam Hall and Never Change by Nick Barstow and Jonathan Kirwin. These musicals will feature as 25 minutes sections over one showcase evening.

Villages is an exploration of some of the events which took place in LGBT bars and venues over history, while Benjamin Button is based on F Scott Fitzgerald's story of a man who ages backwards. To Paint the Earth is set in the Jewish Underground in the Warsaw ghetto during Second World War where a group of fighters forced Nazi tanks to retreat.

Katy Lipson produces the event for Aria Entertainment and has chosen the finalists out of 150 submissions of new musicals from all over the world. Each submission included a short synopsis of the plot and three tracks.

From Page to Stage Festival takes place from 11 to 25 September at Southwark Playhouse.