New Burt Bacharach musical among highlights of From Page to Stage festival line-up

A new musical from Burt Bacharach and Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) will headline this year's From Page to Stage festival, which is being held at The Other Palace for the first time.

Some Lovers (24 August to 2 September) is Bacharach’s first new score since Promises Promises and is based on O Henry's short story The Gift of the Magi, taking up the story of the young Christmas lovers ten years later.

The new musical festival kicks off on 14 August and will feature a range of work chosen from 302 submissions received from 15 countries.

Highlights of the festival include: Oliver Houser's XY about non-consensual corrective surgeries on intersex infants (15 to 17 August); Christopher Dickens and Tom Wright’s Rebel Song, a love story based on Jamie O'Neill's novel At Swim, Two Boys, about two Irish men during the Easter Rising (21 to 23 August); and One Way by Ben Bonnema and Christopher Staskel, in which an astrophysicist is selected to go on the first one-way trip to Mars (24 to 26 August).

British composer Charles Miller will take over the studio for the first weekend of the festival, with a host of West End stars performing songs from his shows including Brenda Bly: Teen Detective, When Midnight Strikes and The Return Of The Soldier.

Miller and Tim Sanders present a new family musical, The Queen’s Nose, adapted from Dick King-Smith’s classic children’s book. Other family shows include Chicken Little by Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary; and Dinostory by Luke Di Somma, Mark Anderson and Erin Carter.

Other new musicals receiving their premiere at the festival include: The Edinburgh 7, a musical about women's fight to study medicine in 1866; The Girls of Downey Hall, a comedy based on Jenny Colgan’s novel Class; and Cult! a comedy about a group of Doomsday Seekers.

Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater will close the festival on 3 September, with a concert performance of their collaborations including Spring Awakening, Phantom Moon, Nero and A Home At The End Of The World.

On this year's festival Andrew Lloyd Webber, owner of The Other Palace, said: "It buoys my hope that The Other Palace will become a breeding ground for new musicals and a genuine hub for anyone interested in musical theatre."

From Page to Stage runs at The Other Palace from 14 August to 3 September 2017.