Theatre News

Cast: Full New Dirty Dancing, Sullivan WWRY

20 July 2010

The full new cast of Dirty Dancing has been announced, with Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancer Johnny Wright joining the previously announced Charlie Bruce and Ray Quinn (See News, 28 May 2010) to lead the company as Johnny Castle.

Dirty Dancing,
currently in its fourth year, has been adapted for the stage by the
film’s screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein, who based the story’s setting on
her own childhood experiences of family holidays in America’s Catskill
Mountains. The musical had its world premiere in Sydney in 2004 and has
since proved a hit on tour in Australia and Germany as well as the UK.

Also
joining the cast are Paul Gilmore (Jake Houseman), Hilary MacLean
(Marjorie Houseman), James Leece (Robbie Gould), Maxine Gregory
(Vivian Pressman), Christopher Kenniston (Neil Kellerman) and
Richard Hope (Max Kellerman).

Welsh actor and popstar Noel Sullivan is to join the touring cast of We Will Rock You leaving the role of Danny Zuko in Grease he has held since November 2009.

Sullivan came to prominence as a member of the band Hear’Say, the pop group resulting from ITV’s 2001 Popstars reality TV show. Since the band’s split he has gone on to appear in Fame, Flashdance and Love Shack, taking up the lead role in Grease late last year.

Set in the future, We Will Rock You
tells the story of a world in which globalisation has meant the death
of real music in favour of computer-produced cyber stars, a status quo
which the rebel Bohemians, harking back to the Golden Age of rock
(embodied by Queen), are trying to overthrow so that they can write and
perform their own music.

PLEASE NOTE: This story has been edited since its first appearance on 20 July 2010

According to the Daily Mail, Clive Rowe, Paul Thornley and Matt Rawle, will play The Three Musketeers
at The Rose, Kingston this Christmas, a new musical with a score by
George Stiles. The adaptation of the classic novel, which opens at The
Rose on 27 November, will also feature Michael Pickering in the role of D’Artagnan.

If confirmed, the Christmas
in Kingston will be a departure for Clive Rowe who is well known for
his appearances as the dame for Hackney Empire. His appearance as
Widow Twankey in Aladdin last Christmas was his sixth for the theatre. Rowe was recently seen in the West End revival of The Fantasticks.

Having created the title role of Zorro in the 2009 production, Matt Rawle has also appeared in the West End as Che in Evita. Paul Thornley was recently seen on stage in It’s a Wonderful Life at the Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, and In the Red and Brown Water at the Young Vic.

Adapted
from Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale about the adventures of D’Artagnan
and his quest to join the legendary Musketeers, this new stage version
promises to be “sultry, passionate and full of the heat of Parisian
summers.”

Composer George Stiles is an award-winning
songwriter whose credits (with his regular collaborator Anthony
Drewe) include Mary Poppins and Honk. Producer Bud Martin has recently
co-produced Legally Blonde in the West End and Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 on
Broadway. Lyrics are by Paul Leigh, with a book by Peter Raby with
Francis Matthews (who also directs).