Wonderful Town

The Royal Exchange THeatre, The Hallé Orchestra and The Lowry IN ASSOCIATION WITH LEE MENZIES AND KENNETH WAX FOR WONDERFUL TOWN UK LTD and Flora Suk-Hwa Yoon present

The Royal Exchange THeatre, The Hallé Orchestra and The Lowry IN ASSOCIATION WITH LEE MENZIES AND KENNETH WAX FOR WONDERFUL TOWN UK LTD and Flora Suk-Hwa Yoon

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his landmark partnership between three of Greater Manchester’s most prestigious arts organisations is the product of a cultural revolution in the region which has spanned generations.

Over 150 years ago, Manchester began to emerge as a centre for classical music and in 1858, Sir Charles Hallé founded his own orchestra. The Hallé’s reputation for artistic excellence and versatility began then and, under the guidance of such distinguished figures as Dr Hans Richter, Sir Hamilton Harty, Sir John Barbirolli and Sir Mark Elder, it continues to inspire and entertain over a quarter of a million people a year, creating a wider enjoyment and understanding of music throughout the whole community.

In 1908, Manchester also breathed new life into the world of theatre when Annie Horniman began the British repertory movement, acting as the catalyst for major changes in the national landscape for theatre. This spirit was continued in 1976 when a group of Artistic Directors, including Wonderful Town’s Director Braham Murray, founded The Royal Exchange in the old Cotton Exchange in central Manchester. The Royal Exchange has proved a springboard for launching the careers of some of the world’s foremost actors and creative teams, providing the region with one of the finest theatrical resources in the country.

Then in 2000, The Lowry opened its doors for the first time. Described by the Manchester Evening News as “the most important development in North West theatre in our lifetime”, it has followed a mission to bring the best in art and entertainment from around the world to Salford. The Lowry has welcomed work including Robert Lepage’s Ex Machina and The Bolshoi Ballet to its theatres, and commissioned new exhibitions of works by Andy Warhol and Spencer Tunick in its Galleries.

The Lowry has acted as a catalyst for regeneration, helping to make Salford Quays one of the most exciting cultural and media destinations in the world.

The partners on Wonderful Town have been fortunate enough to work with three of the country’s finest theatrical producers on this project in Lee Menzies, Kenneth Wax and Flora Suk-Hwa Yoon. This has helped ensure that the legacy for this show extends beyond the run in Salford. After The Lowry, Wonderful Town will be touring the country, giving the chance for people across the UK to enjoy the production. We hope that this collaboration between three of the region’s finest cultural institutions will do justice to the creative and artistic spirit that has been the hallmark of Greater Manchester for the past 150 years.

In this Olympic year of 2012, it’s the perfect opportunity to showcase the artistic quality that Greater Manchester has to offer.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Fiona Gasper Executive Director Royal Exchange Theatre

John Summers Chief Executive The Hallé

Julia Fawcett Chief Executive The Lowry

On Wed 11 April the three organisations are coming together to host a spectacular Royal Gala, in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses The Earl and Countess of Wessex to raise funds for the community and education programmes of The Lowry, the Hallé and Royal Exchange. The evening will also feature the Lowry Young Actors Company and the Hallé Youth Ensembles.

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o be a successful composer of musicals, you either have to be Jewish or gay”, Leonard Bernstein is supposed to have said “And I’m both”. But then, Leonard Bernstein (1918 -1990) was anything he wanted to be. Composer, conductor, broadcaster, virtuoso pianist; writer of great American symphonies and hit Broadway shows; internationally-renowned maestro and teen idol; big-hearted family man and flamboyant party animal.

Chutzpah doesn’t begin to cover it.

Mind you, Bernstein had chutzpah in buckets. That’s how a shampoo-salesman’s son from small-town Massachusetts struck up relationships with the composer Aaron Copland and the conductor Serge Koussevitzky; how he moved to New York, and in November 1943 turned a last-minute gig conducting the New York Philharmonic into a big break.

The next day, mobs of bobby-soxers were screaming for his autograph.

But Bernstein was already friends with the musicalcomedy duo of Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Together, they had an idea for a show. Choreographer Jerome Robbins joined the team and On the Town opened in New York on 28 December 1944. The critics loved it: “Fresh, funny and witty, a wow”.

On the Town set the pace for Bernstein’s Broadway career.

Bernstein’s music, Comden and Green’s lyrics, and Robbins’ explosive dances came together to make a comedy about three sailors on 24 hours leave buzz with all the nervous energy and raw optimism of wartime New York. For Bernstein, it celebrated three of his greatest passions: youth, friendship and that “Helluva town”, New York City itself. For the New York public, it confirmed his status as “the coolest cat in long-hair circles”.

Not that he’d admit it. “I’m probably through with musical comedy” he told reporters. “I like to do everything once, just to see what it feels like”. But when Comden and Green knocked at his apartment door one day in late 1952 with a show about two sisters trying to make it in the Big Apple, they’d barely sat down before he agreed. That was Wonderful Town. Bernstein wrote the entire score in just a matter of weeks. Premièring on Broadway in 1953, Wonderful Town ran for 559 performances, won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and spawned a 1986 West End production and 2003 Broadway revival.

His next show, Candide, took nearly three years. No New York setting here; the youthful hero of Voltaire’s classic satire travels the globe. Bernstein gleefully plundered the whole heritage of classical opera from Mozart to Gilbert and Sullivan, while his librettist Lillian Hellman turned this 18th century romp into a thinly-veiled satire on McCarthyism. When it opened in December 1956 the result was Bernstein’s first big Broadway flop – the reason, according to one critic, being

that “it was O.P.E.R.A.” The opera house is where Candide has now found its home.

Less than a year later West Side Story exploded onto the Broadway stage. Romeo and Juliet retold with modern teenagers in a New York slum, the tragedy driven forward in thrillingly physical dance: West Side Story is such a part of our culture that it’s hard now to realise just how sensational it was. “A profoundly moving show” declared the critic Brooks Atkinson, “as ugly as the city jungles, but also pathetic, tender and forgiving”.

Bernstein was back with what he loved best: young people, on the streets of New York, in a story that wore its social conscience on its sleeve. Jerome Robbins devised the dances, Arthur Laurents the book, and the young Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics. “The book works, the tragedy works, the ballets shine, the music pulses and soars” Bernstein told his wife Felicia “it sure looks like a smash…”

Bernstein’s career as a creative artist peaked the night West Side Story opened on Broadway: 26 September 1957.

Eight weeks later, the New York Philharmonic appointed Bernstein as its first ever American-born music director.

From now on, Bernstein was a conductor above all, occasionally finding time to write some of the most original classical scores of the late 20th century: a Third Symphony Kaddish (1963), Mass (1971) and the opera A Quiet Place (1983). He returned to Broadway just once, in 1976 - collaborating with My Fair Lady lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the address of the White House, and the show was meant to be a bicentennial celebration of the USA’s social history. “A bicentennial bore” was one verdict, and even sponsorship from Coca Cola couldn’t stop it closing within a week – though one song, Take Care of This House, has become an American standard.

Still, all Broadway composers have their flops. Only Leonard Bernstein could have written West Side Story. Less than a year before his death in October 1990, Bernstein conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on the ruins of the recently-demolished Berlin Wall. With the world watching, Bernstein – a showman to the last – changed the text of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from Freude (Joy) to Freiheit (Freedom). Bernstein may have left Broadway, but its spirit never left him. © Richard Bratby.

Images courtesy of The Leonard Bernstein Office.

B POSSIBLE PICS?

efore Wonderful Town was Wonderful Town, it was a film. Before it was a film, it was a play. Before it was a play, it was My Sister Eileen - a book based on a column in The New Yorker. And before that, it was the real-life experience of Ruth McKenney, a 26 year-old aspiring journalist from Columbus, Ohio, who’d moved to New York to make her name along with… her sister Eileen.

That’s right: Wonderful Town, with its zany characters and screwball comedy, is based on a true story. If that seems hard to believe, it certainly didn’t pose any problems for the show’s creators. Lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green had launched their career at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village, and they knew from their own experience that in New York, anything – and anyone – was possible.

But it helped that the characters of Wonderful Town are such instantly recognisable types. The small-town youngsters arriving in the big city, armed only with their dreams: Ruth and Eileen are second-cousins to Peggy in Mad Men, Andy in The Devil Wears Prada and Princeton in Avenue Q. The hard-bitten exec with a heart of gold could be Cary Grant in His Girl Friday or Harrison Ford in Working Girl. The corn-fed football star with a brain like chowder, the keen-but-clueless soda fountain boy, the gruff neighbourhood cop – they’re familiar from a thousand romantic comedies.

Producer George Abbott knew they could be shaken into a zinger of a cocktail. In 1952, he signed Rosalind Russell (star of the 1942 film My Sister Eileen), commissioned a score from Sleigh Ride composer Leroy Anderson – and promptly binned it. Then (recalled Betty Comden), “I got a phone call, and it was George asking if we could write the lyrics for a show based on My Sister Eileen”. There was one catch: Russell would only be available for a few more weeks, and right then, they didn’t even have a composer.

Comden and Green immediately thought of their On the Town partner Leonard Bernstein.

“We had no sooner entered Lenny’s apartment, and were blurting out the facts about the show when the phone rang. It was George, never one to waste time, barking at us impatiently ‘Well, is it yes or no?!!’ To our surprise, with no hesitation, Lenny said ‘Yes’”. As Comden put it, “a few weeks to write a score was an irresistible challenge” and the ideas came as fast as subway trains.

Russell, as Ruth, didn’t feel confident with love songs (she described her voice as “so bass it’s viol”) so Bernstein, Comden and Green tailored the plot to give the romantic numbers A Little Bit in Love and It’s Love to Eileen and Bob. Russell knew what she wanted: ‘Da-da, da-da, da-da, Joke!

Da-da, da-da, da-da, Joke!’ The team delivered, with the fabulously sassy 100 Easy Ways, the poker-faced Conversation Piece and the knowing send-up of hepcat slang, Swing!

And they had one important headstart. “What is this show about?” demanded the team’s On the Town collaborator Jerome Robbins. In Wonderful Town, the answer comes in the first line of the very first song: On your left Washington Square, Right in the heart of Greenwich Village.

The real star of Wonderful Town doesn’t have a single line.

It’s Greenwich Village, (in Comden’s words) “that agreeable maze that isn’t what it used to be, and probably never was”. Since before the Great War, Greenwich Village has been New York’s very own Bohemia, the haunt of artists, free-thinkers, geniuses and frauds. Ruth and Eileen McKenney rented a damp basement flat on Gay Street, and in the 1940s Bernstein’s future wife Felicia had lived below street-level off Washington Square. “Greenwich Village was the Mecca” recalled Bernstein “I had no money, it was very hot, and there were tons of cockroaches everywhere”.

So everyone involved in Wonderful Town knew that in the Village, you didn’t need to make much up. This was where Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal as art: Mr Appopolous looks tame by comparison. Work on the new Sixth Avenue Subway really did keep residents awake all night in the mid-30s, and coach trips for tourists to gawp at the ‘interesting people on Christopher Street’ continue to this day.

Meanwhile, the Village Vanguard club on Seventh Avenue (the show’s ‘Village Vortex’) had opened in February 1935 – just before Ruth and Eileen arrived in town. Its focus on the “new jazz rage: swing!” gave way in the 40s and 50s to beat poetry and bebop. But if the Vortex’s 30s hipsters sound suspiciously 50s to modern ears: well, the Village was always ahead of the curve.

Bernstein, Comden and Green wrote fast, but they wrote from the heart. Four weeks of improvising, rewriting and chain-smoking later, they were done. Wonderful Town opened on Broadway on 25 February 1953. “The most uproarious and original musical carnival we have had since Guys and Dolls” was the New York Times’ verdict. It ran for 559 performances.

Together, the team had captured something that every New Yorker recognised – and loved. And that’s why it still zips along so joyously. Ruth and Eileen’s story was also the story of Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Leonard Bernstein. It’s the story of anyone who’s ever set out for a big city with wide eyes and a suitcase full of ambition: of all those who, in Comden’s words, “like Ruth and Eileen, still come here to fulfil their aspirations in this Wonderful Town”. © Richard Bratby.

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ead any description of Bernstein, Comden and Green’s On the Town, and you’ll learn that it’s about the adventures of three sailors on shore-leave in New York City. Watch On the Town, though, and you’ll see three ladies steal the show from right under their noses. “Come up to my place” growls streetwise taxi-girl Hildy, and you quickly realise: these gals really are ‘cookin’ with gas’. In On the Town, it’s the guys who are the innocents abroad.

No wonder that next time round, in Wonderful Town, Bernstein, Comden and Green put the two heroines at the centre, right from the start.

It’s a story as old as musical theatre itself. With his opera-house experience, you’d think Leonard Bernstein would have remembered how Susanna and the Countess outwit the men at every turn of The Marriage of Figaro, how Carmen chews her way through the whole male cast, and how any production of La Traviata stands or falls by its Violetta. Broadway, too, has always put its leading ladies centre stage – and if the men have any sense, they learn to keep out of the way. “Mister Cellophane should have been my name” laments the clueless husband of celebrity murderess Roxie in Kander and Ebb’s Chicago (1975). “You can look right through me”. He’s got the message.

And even back in the golden age of Broadway, there was a lot more to the female roles than boy-meets-girl. In Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat (1927) – the first truly classic American musical – Magnolia and Julie drive the whole story, challenging social prejudice, taking life-changing decisions and generally keeping the show on the boat.

The women in Hammerstein’s great shows with Richard Rodgers, meanwhile, look conventional only from the outside. Laurey in Oklahoma! (1943) and Julie in Carousel (1945) take brave decisions and live with very different consequences. In South Pacific (1949) ‘cockeyed optimist’ Nellie Forbush confronts and overcomes her prejudices rather more successfully than her male counterpart, the outwardly ‘more intelligent and smart’ Lieutenant Cable.

And both The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959) show strong single women entering very male worlds, and transforming them on their own terms. How do you solve a problem like Maria? By the end of the show, it’s Maria who’s solved everyone else’s problems, give or take the odd anschluss.

In fact, by the 1960s, a strong female lead could carry a whole show – and make the performer a star.

Wonderful Town traded on Rosalind Russell and Edith

Adams’ film and TV credentials (revivals have done the same with Maureen Lipman and Brooke Shields), but Styne and Sondheim’s Gypsy (1959) was built around the astonishing voice and stage presence of Ethel Merman, playing the mother of all stage-mothers. “You either got it, or you ain’t” she yells, as the trumpets scream the roof off.

“And boys – I got it!”

It’d take a brave man to disagree – or to rain on Barbra Streisand’s parade in her career-defining performance in Styne and Merrill’s Funny Girl (1964). The show-stopping, larger-than-life female lead (the “brassy broad on a staircase” in the words of musical historian Mark Steyn) has become one of the great showbiz clichés. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard (1993) is basically a show about just that, while Jerry Herman’s La Cage aux Folles (1973) proved that the statuesque dames in fabulous frocks don’t even have to be women.

Even in the experimental musicals of the 1970s, the women get the last word. Stephen Sondheim’s Company (1970) is meant to be a single man’s knowing survey of relationships, New York-style, but it’s the sardonic, sophisticated Joanne who sticks in the memory with her martini-fuelled dissections of ‘the ladies who lunch’. In Hamlisch and Kleban’s A Chorus Line (1975) – a show defined by the very absence of a star – it’s Cassie, the one chorus member with real star quality, who gives the show its heart. And in Evita (1978), Andrew Lloyd Webber created a female role so persuasive that it could make a fascist dictator seem appealing, and Madonna look like a convincing actress (though Elaine Paige powered the original production to West End glory).

Meanwhile, if the 80s and 90s were a lean time for musical stars, if not musicals (the cast of Phantom of the Opera are upstaged each night by an oversized light-fitting), it turns out that one of the biggest original shows of the 21st century is all about two girls trying to make it in a strange new world. Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked (2003) is a brilliantly imaginative prequel to The Wizard of Oz (“So much happened before Dorothy dropped in”, as the posters put it) in which Elphaba, the supposedly ‘wicked’ Witch of the West turns out to be a shy, spirited single girl with a social conscience, with Glinda the Good Witch as her popular blonde friend.

Sound familiar? Elphaba and Ruth Sherwood, it seems, are musical sisters under the skin – even if the skin is green. © Richard Bratby.

Connie Fisher Wonderful Town is about two sisters. Which one gets the best tunes?

I do! Bernstein is such a clever musician though, he covers so many genres within this show and manages to show the juxtaposition of the two sisters with these musical differences.

I have a great showstopping number, 100 Easy Ways To Lose A Man, that reflects my character’s personality and humour. Eileen’s number, A Little Bit in Love is dramatically different to mine and is perfect for her.

You’re so well known for playing Maria in The Sound of Music: Ruth seems a very different sort of character.

How have you approached the role?

Ruth is very different from Maria both vocally and dramatically. This role was originally performed in the West End by Maureen Lipman who is a comedy heroine of mine. It’s always difficult following in an idol’s footsteps but because it’s been over 20 years since the last revival it feels like a brand new show that we can make our own.

Playing Ruth is a big challenge, as it is a character part and is so different from a juvenile lead like Maria. But developing this part with Braham Murray and Sir Mark Elder has been thrilling and I’m loving every second of making this part my own.

Is singing Bernstein very different from singing Rodgers?

It is very different. The role of Ruth was written for Rosalind Russell, the comedic star of her era and was developed specifically for her vocal range and this is very different from singing the soprano role of Maria. However, both shows were written in the same decade and you can hear similar musical influences in both scores. Bernstein’s style is completely different to Richard Rodgers but Wonderful Town gives us the opportunity to showcase a wide variety of different musical genres and that is what makes this show wonderful!

You’ve said that reality show winners never get asked to perform with any institution with “Royal” in the title – how have you found working with the Royal Exchange Theatre and the Hallé Orchestra?

In all honesty the initial reason I took this job was to work with the Royal Exchange Theatre. The experience of working with both the Royal Exchange and the Hallé along with such a talented creative team and cast has surpassed my expectations. Hopefully by working with these great institutions I will have pushed the usual boundaries and had a great time doing it.

What role would you like to play next?

I’d like to do a straight play in the West End next. I’m a very ambitious girl and now I have worked with a company with Royal in the title there is no stopping me!

Who knows what the future holds?

Connie Fisher (Ruth Sherwood)

Connie rose to fame playing the lead role of Maria in The Sound Of Music at The London Palladium having won How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s reality TV show for the BBC. Connie graduated from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts with first class honours; she was awarded the ‘Gyearbuor Asante’ for acting at her graduation in 2005.

Television credits include: the returning character Amanda on BBC’s Casualty; Connie’s Musical Map of Wales and Connie’s People for BBC Wales; Caught In A Trap for ITV; The Omid Djalili Show for the BBC, Pobol Y Cwm, Gwreiddiau and Darn O Dir for S4C. Theatre credits include: The Sound of Music (National Tour and The London Palladium); They’re Playing Our Song (The Menier Chocolate Factory); Pendragon (the National Youth Musical Theatre’s tour of Japan and its performance at Sadler’s Well’s, London).

Film credits include The Wedding Dress for Size 9 Productions.

Other experience includes: Princess Samina in Aladdin for The Torch Theatre, Milford Haven and winner of the Welsh Musical Theatre Young Singer of the Year, 2006.

Connie’s appearances and concerts include: Noson Lawen, The National Eisteddfod 2008, Faenol Festival 2007, BBC Radio 2 Lloyd Webber Gala Concert, BBC Songs Of Praise Big Sing at The Royal Albert Hall, Concert For Diana at The Wembley Stadium, Blue Peter Proms at The Royal Albert Hall and New Year Live for The BBC. In 2006 Connie released her debut album Favourite Things and features on the cast album for The Sound Of Music and the new West Side Story album. Connie launched her latest album Secret Love in February 2009.

Michael Xavier (Bob Baker)

Michael trained in Acting at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Theatre credits include: Oliver in Love Story at The Duchess Theatre and Chichester Festival Theatre (Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical); Wolf/Cinderella’s Prince in Into The Woods at The Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park (Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical).

Other theatre credits include: Curly in Oklahoma!

(Chichester Festival Theatre), Sir Galahad in Spamalot!

(Palace Theatre); Rock Hudson in Rock (Manchester Library Theatre, Liverpool Unity Theatre and Oval House Theatre); Raoul in The Phantom Of The Opera (Her Majesty’s Theatre); Sky in Mamma Mia! (International Tour Original Cast); Freddy Eynsford-Hill in My Fair Lady (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane); Miss Great Plains in Pageant (Vaudeville Theatre and King’s Head Theatre); Nankipoo in The Mikado (UK Tour) and Chris in Miss Saigon (Original UK Tour).

Radio credits include: Rock Hudson in Rock (winner of BBC Best Online Drama 2011); Tony in West Side Story 50th Anniversary (Mermaid Theatre) and Artie Green in Sunset Boulevard (Cork Opera House) both for BBC Radio 2.

Recordings include: Laurie in Little Women (Pelion Productions); Eagle in Thank You For The Music (West End International) and Soldier in Toys (Morrisey Productions).

He has also recorded songs for young British Musical Theatre composers Michael Bruce (Unwritten Song), Tim Prottey-Jones (Chance In A Lifetime) and Craig Adams (Therese Racquin and Lift).

Michael has also performed in many concerts around the world. He is currently working on his debut album to be released later this year.

Michael is a proud patron of the charity Action For M.E.

Lucy Van Gasse (Eileen Sherwood)

Lucy trained in opera at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama after gaining her Bachelor of Music degree from Cardiff University.

Theatre credits include: Love Never Dies (Adelphi Theatre).

Opera credits include: Carmen (Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford), La Traviata (Grand Theatre, Swansea), Cendrillon (Sherman Theatre, Cardiff).

Recitals include: Brahms’ Requiem (St Donat’s Art Centre), From Wales to Broadway (Bridgend Arts Festival) and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (St Donat’s Art Centre).

Lucy also performed as part of the internationally acclaimed classical cross-over group Amici Forever both in the UK and abroad.

Music by Leonard Bernstein Book by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green Based upon the play My Sister Eileen by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov and the short stories by Ruth McKenney Performances of Wonderful Town are given by permission of Boosey and Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

Overture Christopher Street Ohio

Conquering New York 100 Easy Ways to Lose A Man What a Waste A Little Bit in Love Pass the Football Conversation Piece A Quiet Girl Conga!

Conga! Reprise

Orchestra Tour Guide, Tourists & Villagers Ruth & Eileen Ruth, Eileen & Ensemble Ruth Baker & Editors Eileen Wreck & Villagers Ruth, Eileen, Baker, Chick & Frank Baker & Ruth Ruth & Brazilian Cadets Ruth, Eileen & Company

Entr’acte Orchestra My Darlin’ Eileen Eileen, Lonigan & Policemen Swing!

Ruth, Helen, Frank & Villagers Ohio Reprise Ruth & Eileen It’s Love Baker, Eileen, Lonigan & Villagers Ballet at the Village Vortex Ensemble Wrong Note Rag Ruth, Eileen & Company It’s Love Reprise Eileen, Baker, Ruth & Company

Running Times 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.

First performance of this production at The Lowry, Sat 31 March 2012.

(in order of appearance) TOUR GUIDE Peter McPherson MR. APPOPOLOUS Sévan Stephan HELEN Tiffany Graves WRECK Nic Greenshields VIOLET Annette Yeo OFFICER LONIGAN Paul Hawkyard MODERN DANCERS Lucy James, Oliver Roll RADICALS Katy Hards, Giovanni Spanó A YOGI Bob Harms SPEEDY VALENTI Michael Matus EILEEN Lucy van Gasse RUTH Connie Fisher FLETCHER Bob Harms A KID Liam Wrate DRUNKS Alain Terzoli, Giovanni Spanó, Matt Wilman ESKIMO PIE MAN Giovanni Spanó BOB BAKER Michael Xavier EDITOR 1 Matt Wilman EDITOR 2 Bob Harms MRS. WADE Annette Yeo FRANK LIPPENCOTT Haydn Oakley CHEF Alain Terzoli WAITER Giovanni Spanó CHICK CLARK Joseph Alessi SHORE PATROLMAN Matt Wilman MAN WITH SIGN Matt Wilman

TOURISTS, GREENWICH VILLAGERS, MODERN DANCERS, EDITORS, CADETS & COPS Emily Goodenough, Katy Hards, Lucy James, Frankie Jenna, Lucinda Lawrence, Natalie Moore-Williams, Bob Harms, Peter McPherson, Oliver Roll, Giovanni Spanó Alain Terzoli, Matt Wilman, Liam Wrate

Director Musical Director Choreographer Set & Costume Designer Lighting Designer Sound Designer Associate Musical Director Associate Director Assistant Choreographer Dialect Coaches Assistants to the Musical Directors

Braham Murray Sir Mark Elder Andrew Wright Simon Higlett Chris Davey Clement Rawling James Burton Rania Jumaily Lucy James Richard Ryder & Jan Haydn Rowles

George Dyer & Ben Kennedy

General Manager

Gareth Johnson Production Manager Patrick Molony Wardrobe Supervisor Bill Butler Wigs Supervisor Rowena Dean Production Wigs Assistant Joey Anthony Props Supervisors Chris Marcus & Jonathan Hall for MarcusHall Props Assistant Production Manager Kate West Company Manager Helen C Gorton Stage Manager George Bernard Gallagher Deputy Stage Manager Tracey Fleet ASM (Book cover) Fiona Jane Coombe ASM (Tech) Kerry Sullivan Production Carpenter Phil Large Lighting Programmer Andy Murrell Production Electrician Richard Bauermeister Associate Sound Designer Paul Delaney Production Engineer Andrew Simpson Sound Operator 1 Matt Dando Sound Operator 2 Lara Windsor Technical Swing Claire Stamp Wardrobe Mistress Susannah Thrush Wardrobe Assistant Catherine Fitzgerald Touring Wardrobe Assistant Kate Anderson Wigs Assistant Jennifer Maiquez Villanueva

COVERS MR. APPOPOLOUS HELEN WRECK VIOLET OFFICER LONIGAN SPEEDY VALENTI EILEEN EILEEN (2nd Cover) RUTH RUTH (2nd Cover) BOB BAKER FRANK LIPPENCOTT MRS WADE CHICK CLARK

Matt Wilman Katy Hards Giovanni Spanó Katy Hards Matt Wilman Peter McPherson Frankie Jenna Emily Goodenough Natalie Moore-Williams Emily Goodenough Bob Harms Liam Wrate Lucy James Peter McPherson

(Sat 31 March - Sat 14 April)

Conductor The Hallé Hallé Orchestra Manager

Sir Mark Elder see p31 for players Tom Baxter

(Mon 16 - Sat 21 April) Conductor The Orchestra Tour Orchestra Manager

James Burton see p31 for players Sylvia Addison

Joseph Alessi (Chick Clark)

(Ensemble/2nd Cover Ruth & Eileen)

Emily Goodenough

Nic Greenshields

Theatre credits include: Tartuffe (Liverpool Playhouse/ETT, UK tour); Absurd Person Singular (Curve, Leicester); Brief Encounter (Kneehigh, UK and USA tours and Broadway); Assassins (Union Theatre, London); Dick Whittington (Salisbury Playhouse); Privates On Parade (West Yorkshire Playhouse and Birmingham Rep); Tartuffe (Liverpool Playhouse and Rose Theatre, Kingston); The Drowsy Chaperone (Novello Theatre, London); Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and The Tempest (RSC and Novello Theatre, London); Jerusalem (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Postman Always Rings Twice (West Yorkshire Playhouse and Playhouse Theatre, London); The Story of Io (Aldeburgh and Almeida, London); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London); The Play Wot I Wrote (Tour); Romeo and Juliet (Liverpool Playhouse); The Accrington Pals (Minerva Theatre, Chichester); The Front Page, Tovarich and Henry VIII (Chichester Festival Theatre); Polygraph (Nottingham Playhouse); The Taming of the Shrew, A View From A Bridge and Romeo and Juliet (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); Light (Theatre de Complicite, Almeida and UK tour); Animal Crackers (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Barbican Theatre and Lyric Theatre, London); The Colour of Justice - The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry (Tricycle Theatre, London); The Rivals (Basingstoke Haymarket and Greenwich Theatre); The Taming of the Shrew (Leicester Haymarket Theatre) and The Comedy of Errors (RSC, Barbican and world tour) Film credits include: The Other Woman, Family Business, Bridget Jones’ Diary, London Kills Me, The Insititute Benjamenta, Chaplin.

Joe was nominated for an Olivier Award for his role in Animal Crackers.

Emily trained at Corraine Collins Dance Studios before gaining a scholarship to Bird College where she graduated in July 2008.

Theatre credits includes: Wizard of Oz (London Palladium); Donna in Dreamboats and Petticoats (UK tour); understudied and played Rumpleteaser in Cats (German tour, Cologne Musical-Dome and Frankfurt Alte Opera) and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas The Musical (Plymouth Theatre Royal and The Lowry).

Recordings include: The Wizard of Oz (Original Cast Recording).

Nic trained at Laine Theatre Arts.

West End credits include: alternate Phantom in Phantom of the Opera (Her Majesty’s Theatre); Prince in Into The Woods (Royal Opera House); understudy Inspector Javert in Les Misérables (Palace and Queens Theatres); Del Copeland in The Beautiful Game (Cambridge Theatre); Valentin in Lautrec (Shaftesbury Theatre); Miss Saigon (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane); Les Misérables – 25th Anniversary (O2 Arena) and Phantom of the Opera – 25th Anniversary (Royal Albert Hall).

National Tours and regional theatre includes: The Beast and Gaston in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Munkustrap in Cats, The Man in Whistle Down The Wind, Prince in Into The Woods, West End Showstoppers, Lend me a Tenor, Hamlet, Annie, Stags and Hens and Mr Brooke in Little Women.

Nic has appeared on the Brit Awards, Classical Brit Awards, the Royal Variety Performance, Blue Peter and Children in Need. Nic was also a soloist in the film De-Lovely and has recently played Dan in Subculture (Berserk Films). He has appeared in numerous pantomimes, cabarets, corporate and charity concerts plus workshops for new musicals.

He has also performed on NCL cruise ships and in many charity events across the UK. Nic is thrilled to be part of this wonderful production.

Tiffany Graves

(Wreck Loomis)

(Helen)

Tiffany trained at The Arts Educational School, Tring.

Theatre credits include: Velma Kelly in Chicago (Adelphi and Cambridge Theatre); Killer Queen in We Will Rock You (UK Tour); Helene and alternate Charity in Sweet Charity (Menier Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal Haymarket); Satan and Baby Jane in Tonight’s the Night (UK Tour); Run for your Wife (UK Tour); Dolores in Babes in Arms (New Theatre, Cardiff Festival); Godspell (UK Tour); Eurobeat (Pleasance Grand); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (National Theatre); Cats (New London Theatre); Margie in Follies (Royal Festival Hall); Joan in Dames at Sea (Eastbourne Theatres); A Chorus Line (UK Tour); Sunset Boulevard (GMT) and Anything Goes and La Traviata (Grange Park Opera).

Concerts and recordings include: Night of 1000 Voices (Royal Albert Hall); Royal Opening Gala (Wales Millenium Theatre); Chess (Royal Albert Hall); The Christmas Album (Soloist with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) and Bush Tales.

Katy Hards

(Ensemble / Cover Helen & Violet) Katy graduated from Performers College, winning the prestigious Solo Singing Competition adjudicated by Nick Skilbeck in her final year.

Theatre credits include: Sally Simpson, understudied and played the Acid Queen in Tommy (The English Theatre, Frankfurt); ensemble, understudied and played Urleen in Footloose (No1 UK Tour); Dinah and understudied and played Pearl in Starlight Express (Bochum, Germany); We Will Rock You (Cologne, Germany) and Fairy Godmother/ Assistant Choreographer in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Rotherham Civic).

Television credits include: McDonalds Christmas commercial 2010; Starlight Express national commercial as Pearl; It’s Now or Never – featured dancer (ITV); Strictly Dance Fever Ident (BBC).

Katy would like to thank her amazing friends and family for their constant love and support.

Bob Harms

(Ensemble/Fletcher/Cover Baker) Bob trained at Arts Education School, Tring.

Theatre credits include: Understudy Amos in Chicago (Cambridge Theatre); Larry Hastings in Bells Are Ringing (Union Theatre); understudy Tick in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Palace Theatre); understudied Captain Blick and Otto/Rufus in Imagine This (New London Theatre); Understudy Billy in Dirty Dancing (Aldwych Theatre); Footloose, in which he played Lyle and understudied and played Ren (Novello Theatre, Playhouse Theatre and National Tour); On The Town directed by Jude Kelly, in which he understudied Chip (English National Opera); Chicago (Adelphi Theatre and National Tour) and Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake (National Tour).

Workshops include: Bridget Jones’ Diary directed by Stephen Daldry and most recently understudied the roles Leading Player and Charlemagne in Pippin (Menier Chocolate Factory).

Paul Hawkyard (Officer Lonigan)

Theatre credits include: South Pacific (National Theatre), Oliver! (London Palladium), Les Misérables (Palace Theatre), Jesus Christ Superstar (Lyceum Theatre), Miss Saigon (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), Mamma Mia! (Prince of Wales Theatre), Barnum (National Tour & Hong Kong), Ladies Night (National Tour), Road Movie (Hull Truck Theatre) Birdsong (Comedy Theatre), Lady Be Good, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It (all Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park).

Television credits include: Coronation Street, Eastenders, The Bill, Casualty, Where The Heart Is, Heartbeat, If I Had You, Residents, Lorna Doone, Sirens, Scoop, Two Pints of Lager, Everybody Loves Sunshine (US title Busted), The Last Detective, Doctors, There’s a Viking in My Bed and Saxons and Vikings.

Paul is also a successful wildlife artist and his work has appeared in the book Drawing and Painting Birds

by Tim Wootton.

Lucy James

Lucinda Lawrence

Lucy trained at Laine Theatre Arts.

Theatre credits include: The Tsar’s Bride (Royal Opera House); Cabaret (UK Tour); Faust (Royal Opera House); Musical Memories of Stage and Screen (Palace Theatre); Cinderella (Birmingham Hippodrome); L’Heure Espagnole (Royal Opera House); Snow White (New Victoria Theatre, Woking and Churchill Theatre, Bromley); A Tribute to Women (Mont Blanc, Shanghai); Palace Tap with the Tap Dogs (Buckingham Palace).

Television and film credits include: Confetti (BBC Films); The New Paul O’Grady Show (Channel 4); Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (LWT); BAFTA Awards (LWT) and Desi DNA (BBC).

Lucy has also worked as assistant choreographer to Andrew Wright on the musical Curtains (Arts Ed) and Cinderella (Wyvern Theatre, Swindon).

Lucinda trained at Arts Education.

Theatre credits include: understudy Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street (Curve, Leicester); Soho Cinders by Stiles and Drew (Queens Theatre, including live cast recording); understudy Meg Giri and Fleck in Love Never Dies (Adelphi Theatre); Rhoda in Irving Berlin’s White Christmas The Musical (Michael Rose Productions); Gladys in 42nd Street (Chichester Festival Theatre); Dorothy in Once Upon A Time at the Adelphi (Union Theatre); principal singer in Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance (UK Tour); ensemble and understudy Miss Lark in Mary Poppins (UK Tour); principal dancer in Showgirl Within (Garrick Theatre); Follies in Concert (London Palladium) and Children Will Listen a tribute to Stephen Sondheim (Theatre Royal Drury Lane).

Workshops include Pippin (Menier Chocolate factory) and Spittin’ Distance (National Theatre Studio, plus cast recording).

Frankie Jenna

Michael Matus

Frankie trained at Millennium College.

Theatre credits include: Martha in Rat Pack Live in Las Vegas (Wyndams Theatre); Angel in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Union Theatre); understudy Penny in Dirty Dancing (Aldwych Theatre); Gad’s wife in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Adelphi Theatre); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (UK tour and Singapore); Young Solange in Follies (Landor Theatre); Carousel (Chichester Festival Theatre); Doctor Foster (in association with the RSC at the Menier Chocolate Factory); Snow White (Milton Keynes); understudy Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (UK tour); Peter Pan (Genting Theatre Kuala Lumpar).

Television credits include: Blue Peter, The Big Breakfast, Alan Titchmarsh, This Morning and Children in Need.

Michael trained at RADA. Theatre credits include: Shared Experience in Mill on the Floss and Jane Eyre; The Royal Shakespeare Company in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe then leading roles in Eastward Ho!, The Canterbury Tales and The Island Princess; Rupert Goold’s The End of the Affair and Rough Crossings; The Globe Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Timon of Athens and in Tis Pity She’s A Whore with Jonathan Munby at West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Television credits include: Endeavour for ITV, a new ‘Inspector Morse’ series set in 1965; and BBC’s This is Dom Joly, Eastenders and A Prince Among Men. Film credits include: The Crying Game and The Muppet Christmas Carol.

In musical theatre Michael played and recorded the part of Benoit The Fool in the original cast of Cameron MacIntosh’s Martin Guerre; he played Izzy in Tim Sheader’s production of Imagine This at the New London; he was Ali Hakim in John Doyle’s Oklahoma! in Chichester and Tito Merelli in Lend Me A Tenor in the West End last year.

He has been nominated for a Broadway World Award, a What’s On Stage Award, an Off West End Award, a Helen Hayes Award and has jointly won an Olivier Award for The RSC Ensemble in 2003.

(Ensemble /Cover Mrs Wade/Assistant Choreographer and Dance Captain)

(Ensemble/Cover Eileen)

(Ensemble/Swing)

(Speedy Valenti)

Natalie Moore-Williams (Ensemble/Cover Ruth)

Natalie trained at Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts.

Theatre credits include: My Fair Lady (Cameron Mackintosh Productions, UK Tour), Evita (Really Useful Group and Bill Kenwright Productions, European and UK Tour), Chess (Nick Grace Management, Scandinavian Tour), Robin Hood (Brick Lane Music Hall), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Shaw Theatre) and The Wild Party (Albany Theatre).

Television credits include Miss Marie Lloyd Queen of the Music Hall (BBC/Hat Trick Productions).

Natalie has also appeared in numerous music videos and recorded vocals for various recording artists.

Peter McPherson

(Ensemble/Tour Guide/Cover Valenti and Chick) Theatre credits include: Evita (UK Tour), Alonzo in Cats (UK Tour), Tommy in Annie Get Your Gun (UK Tour), Sebastian in Twelfth Night (Open Air UK Tour), Jack Frost in The Snowman (Birmingham Rep and Peacock Theatre), Travis in Footloose (UK Tour), Boogie Nights (UK Tour), Samurai Warrior in Mitridate, Re Di Ponto (Covent Garden Opera), Night of a Thousand Voices (Royal Albert Hall).

He has also appeared in the music video Best Friends for Allstars.

Oliver Roll (Ensemble/Swing)

Haydn Oakley (Frank Lippencott)

Haydn trained at Guildford School of Acting.

Theatre credits include: Joe and understudy Max in Lend Me a Tenor (Gielgud Theatre); Albert Lennox and understudy Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden (Edinburgh and Toronto); Sgt. Lombardi in Passion (Donmar Warehouse); Warren and understudy Godber in Porridge (UK Tour); male standby for Sir Lancelot, Prince Herbert, Sir Robin and King Arthur in Spamalot (Palace Theatre); swing and understudy Dr. Dillamond in Wicked (Apollo Victoria Theatre); Rick in Woman in Mind (Gawsworth Open Air Theatre); Jordan in Unzipped (Arts Theatre); ensemble and understudy Pop and Kashoggi in We Will Rock You (The Dominion Theatre); Luciana/Adriana in The Bomb-itty of Errors (New Ambassadors Theatre); 16 Gobs (Kings Head Theatre); Geoffrey in Stepping Out (Curzon Theatre) and James in Never Saw The Day (UK Tour).

Short films include: Dave in A Family Affair and Jason King in Knock Knock.

Music videos include: Inflatable by Bush and Japanese Girl by Eskimo-Disco.

Workshops include: Tom Springfield in Dusty; Jordan in Departure Lounge; Charlie in Music is the Hero; Epimethius in Pandemonium and Humpty-Dumpty in Through The Looking Glass.

Oliver trained at Sir Paul McCartney’s The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA).

West End theatre credits include: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new production of The Wizard of Oz (London Palladium), Hair (Gielgud Theatre), Oliver!

(Theatre Royal Drury Lane), Rent (Charity Concert, Garrick Theatre) and We Will Rock You (Dominion Theatre).

Off West End and regional theatre credits include: Bright Lights, Big City (Hoxton Hall), Chasing Fate (Birmingham Hippodrome), The Wedding Singer (UK Tour), The Wizard of Oz (RSC version, Southampton Mayflower), Chicago (UK Tour), Imagine This (Theatre Royal Plymouth), Peter Pan (The Swan, High Wycombe), Chicago (European Tour), Oriana Theatre Company (Cruising Musicals Consortium, P&O Oriana) and Peter Pan (Sunderland Empire).

Television and film credits include: The Wizard of Oz on Children in Need (BBC), Sanex: Naked advertisement, Sir Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute, We Will Rock You on Blue Peter (BBC) and Transient Touch (Sightlines Productions).

Cast recordings include Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new production of The Wizard of Oz and Oliver!

Giovanni Spanó (Ensemble / Cover Wreck)

Giovanni trained at Sylvia Young Theatre School and Laine Theatre Arts.

Theatre credits include: Played Will and Tommy Footloose (West End, UK Tour) Pepper Mamma Mia! (Prince of Wales Theatre) Doody Grease (Piccadilly Theatre), Goodman King Fame (UK Tour), Cousin Kevin Tommy (Frankfurt); Falstaff (Royal Opera House); Tootles Peter Pan (Royal Festival Hall); Jack and the Beanstalk (Kings Theatre Edinburgh – Qdos) and Dick Whittington (New Theatre Cardiff – Qdos).

Television credits include: Presenter Top 25 ABBA Hits (Magic TV); TOTP’S Christmas Special – Mamma Mia! (BBC); This Morning - Footloose (ITV) and Children in Need – Footloose (BBC). Giovanni also played DJ in the feature film Risky Business.

Original Cast recordings include: Whistle Down The Wind, Bugsy Malone and Peter Pan. He is also the lead singer in the rock band deVIence.

Sévan Stephan

Alain Terzoli

Sévan studied at Bristol University and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School Theatre credits include: Annie (West Yorkshire Playhouse), As You Like It and Merlin and the Woods of Time (Grosvenor Park, Chester), A Christmas Carol (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Birmingham Rep), Sondheim at 80 – BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall), Comedians (Bolton Octagon), Murder Mystery Musical (Edinburgh Festival), Imagine This (New London Theatre), Lord of the Rings (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), My Fair Lady (National Theatre), Guys and Dolls (Piccadilly Theatre), Grand Hotel (Donmar), Follow my Leader (Birmingham Rep/ Hampstead Theatre), Cinderella and Much Ado About Nothing (Bristol Old Vic), Romeo and Juliet – The Musical (Piccadilly Theatre), title role in Lautrec (Shaftesbury Theatre), The Winter’s Tale and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (RSC), David Copperfield (Eastern Angles), Martin Guerre (Prince Edward) and Wild, Wild Women and The Rink (Orange Tree).

Television and film credits include: Lab Rats, Tripping Over, Space Race, Bleak House, Meet the Magoons, Royal Variety Performances (1996 & 2005) and the films Exitz and Finding Neverland.

Cast recordings include: Original cast recordings of Imagine This, Lord of the Rings, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Martin Guerre, Romeo and Juliet – The Musical and the 2001 cast recording of My Fair Lady.

Alain trained at The Arts Educational School, London.

Theatre credits include: Mamma Mia (International Tour) where he understudied and played the role of Eddie; Kevin in Follies (Theatre Royal, Northampton); understudied and played the roles of Lieutenant Brannigan and Big Julie in the Donmar Warehouse production of Guys and Dolls (Piccadilly Theatre); Imagine This (Theatre Royal, Plymouth); Dr Johnny Long in Porn The Musical (Theatre 503); understudied and played Nick Massey in Jersey Boys (Prince Edward Theatre); featured singer in Dirty Dancing (Aldwych Theatre) and Hair (Ampitheatre of Slovenia).

(Mr Appopolous)

(Ensemble)

Liam Wrate

(Ensemble/Cover Frank) Liam trained at The Dance School of Scotland and Millennium Performing Arts.

Theatre credits include: The Wizard of Oz (London Palladium); Chicago (Cambridge Theatre); Mary Poppins (UK Tour); Cats (UK Tour); Me and My Girl (UK Tour); Anything Goes (UK Tour); Billy Elliot (Victoria Palace); On the Town (London Coliseum); The Showgirl Within (Garrick Theatre); DanceLines (Royal Opera House); Resolution! (The Place) and Cinderella (Capitol Theatre, Horsham).

Alain has recently filmed his first feature film entitled Crux, which will be released in 2013, where he played the role of Cameron. He can also be seen in the short film, Nicotine Love. He is delighted to be a part of the cast of Wonderful Town.

Annette Yeo (Mrs Wade/Violet)

Matt Wilman

(Ensemble, Man with Sign, Shore Patrolman, Cover Lonigan and Appopolous) Matt trained at Phil Winstons Theatreworks.

Theatre credits includes: Longshoreman in Anna Christie starring Jude Law (Donmar Warehouse); Sailor and understudy Guy and Cassard in Kneehigh’s production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Gielgud Theatre and Leicester Curve); understudy Che in Evita (European Tour); Rum Tum Tugger in Cats (Arena Tour); David in Calling (Kings Head, London); Narrator in Four Cars and a Clown (The London Bridge Festival); Eddie in Mamma Mia! (Prince of Wales Theatre, London); Prince Charming in Cinderella (Charter Theatre, Preston & White Rock Theatre, Hastings) and Dandini in Cinderella (Assembly Rooms, Derby).

Annette trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

Her West End Theatre credits include: original casts of Mamma Mia! (Prince Edward), City of Angels (Prince of Wales), Passion (Queen’s Theatre) and Love Never Dies (Adelphi).

Other theatre credits include: Madame Giry in the 20th anniversary cast of Phantom of the Opera (Her Majesty’s); appeared in Michael Blakemore’s acclaimed revival of Kiss Me Kate (Victoria Palace) taking over as Kate; Fantine and Factory Girl in Les Misérables (Palace Theatre); Mrs Lyons in Blood Brothers, Miss Bell in Fame and Mrs Walker in Tommy (National Tours); Sweeney Todd (Gothenburg Opera); Susan in Company (Derby Playhouse); The London Project (National Theatre Studio); The Witch in Into the Woods (Scottish Premier); Lily in The Secret Garden (Scottish Premier); Berkley Square (BBC), Kiss Me Kate (BBC); The Royal Variety Performance (BBC); Julie Jordan in Carousel (Westcliff); Grace in Annie (Guildford) and Lillian in Happy End (Bridewell Theatre).

Concert work includes: The Phantom of the Opera – 25th Anniversary and Les Misérables – 10th Anniversary concerts (The Royal Albert Hall); A Touch of West End (Madinat Jumeirah Theatre, Dubai); and her own one-woman show on board Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria.

Recordings include: Mamma Mia, City of Angels and Passion cast albums.

Braham, you said that the Royal Exchange has always wanted to work with the Hallé and The Lowry, what took so long?

The Royal Exchange is in the round and only seats about 750 people – if you put the Hallé Orchestra in the Royal Exchange there is nowhere to put the audience.

We have done concerts with them at the RNCM and at The Dancehouse some years ago, but we never found the thing that would really get it going. It was Mark who came back full excitement and enthusiasm for Wonderful Town. It clearly couldn’t be done at the Royal Exchange and my pathetic reaction was “we can’t do it”. And he said “Well let’s do it on the proscenium arch at The Lowry” and I thought “yeah why not, an even bigger collaboration with them as well, so there we were”.

What’s at the heart of Wonderful Town?

Braham Murray is a Founding Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre Company for whom he has directed over 70 productions.

In 1964, his Oxford production of Hang Down Your Head And Die transferred to the West End and Broadway. From the Century Theatre, where he was Artistic Director, he became a Founding Director of the ‘69 Theatre Company; credits include: She Stoops To Conquer and Charley’s Aunt (with Tom Courtenay) and Mary Rose (with Mia Farrow).

Productions include: Uncle Vanya (Tom Courtenay and Amanda Donohoe, Circle in the Square Theatre, New York); The Good Companions (John Mills and Judi Dench); The Black Mikado (Michael Denison); Andy Capp (Tom Courtenay and Alan Price); The Cabinet Minister (Maureen Lipman) and Lady Windermere’s Fan (all West End).

Other credits include: The Dybbuk, Riddley Walker, Waiting For Godot (Max Wall and Trevor Peacock); Hamlet (Robert Lindsay); Maybe (Vanessa Redgrave); The Count Of Monte Cristo, Peer Gynt and Riddley Walker (David Threlfall); Miss Julie and Hedda Gabler (Amanda Donohoe); Othello with Paterson Joseph and Andy Serkis; Hobson’s Choice with John Thomson, Trevor Peacock and Joanna Riding; The Happiest Days Of Your Life and the world premières of Snake In Fridge and Cold Meat Party by Brad Fraser. He also directed the North America première of Cold Meat Party for Factory Theatre, Toronto.

Braham’s recent productions for the Royal Exchange Theatre include: 5@50; The Bacchae; Charley’s Aunt; True Love Lies; The Glass Menagerie, which completed a national tour in 2008 and the world première of Haunted, which completed a UK tour and toured to New York as part of the ‘Brits on Broadway’ season as well as playing in Australia at Sydney Opera House.

Most recently he directed The Bacchae and the world première of Skellig, the opera, for The Sage, Gateshead. In 2007 he directed Brenda Blethyn in Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads for an Australian tour. His autobiography The Worst It Can Be Is A Disaster is published by Methuen Drama. He received an OBE in January 2010 for services to drama. His latest book How To Direct A Play has just been published by Oberon Books.

Wonderful Town will be his final production as Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre, before he steps down from the role in July 2012, after 35 years with the company.

Life force, it’s about the sheer joy of living in spite of all the obstacles that get in the way. That sounds almost banal but the way it’s expressed in terms of the music and the book, it’s so extraordinarily vibrant.

Who was the real creator of Wonderful Town?

Bernstein, Comden and Green or Fields and Chodorov?

Well the answer is not easy. Fields and Chodorov wrote the original play My Sister Eileen on which it was based.

Comden and Green thought this would make a great musical but they couldn’t get a score they liked and so the young Bernstein, who was just coming back from his honeymoon, was asked “Could you write us a musical?”.

He said “How long have I got?” They said “a few weeks” and he said “Love it, yeah, sure!”

So you wouldn’t think of it as Bernstein’s show, it belongs to all of them?

It belongs to all of them, absolutely, it’s a great story, the lyrics are brilliant and the music is genius.

Is there any message in Wonderful Town or is it just escapism?

It is not escapism! It’s “Live, live, try, go on with it and don’t give up, you will make it!”

It will be a delight, I hope, for all audiences but it really makes you feel yes I can do this!

You called your autobiography “The worst it can be is a disaster!”. Is that a helpful philosophy when directing a musical?

Hugely helpful, as I explained in the autobiography. It happened one night when I was rehearsing a play, in the days before there were computers, you stayed up all night before the technical and you just didn’t sleep for 48 hours.

Then sitting there at about 2 o’clock in the morning feeling absolutely dreadful, and the man who actually designed the Royal Exchange walked in and looked at us sitting there and said “cheer up! The worst it can be

is a disaster” and I roared with laughter and I thought that’s the way you should approach every show. Just remember “The worst it can be is a disaster – enjoy, enjoy!”

With a new musical the potential for disaster is almost unlimited. But when you have a great musical like this and a team of this talent you don’t reckon the potential for disaster is so great. But of course with all the disciplines it’s much easier to go wrong than with a play.

How does a stage director adjust to working with a musical score which sets its own tempo and emotional pace?

Well it doesn’t entirely. When you are doing an opera that is exactly what a stage director has to deal with, there is the score and obviously the conductor sets the tempo and you have to respond to exactly how it’s done. But the director of a musical has to bring together the music, the acting, the dancing and tell a story and through that make sure that everything fits, that it’s all homogenous. The director sometimes adjusts tempos and even decides emotionally how songs should be delivered as part of the job. The difference with a play is you build up extremely slowly and you continue probably to tell the actors “you can do it with less… you can do it with less… less”, with a musical because the actors are already singing, they’re already dancing, you’re having to go in wallop and say “hey hey, do more, do more, do more” as it has to be at the same pitch as the music and the dancing.

You worked on Broadway in the sixties. What was your experience of New York theatre and can you identify with the creators of Wonderful Town?

I went to see lots of things then, Golden Boy and the first production of Blues for Mr Charlie. It was all great because the people in the pit orchestra there were kind of Count Basie side men like Frank West and you would have drinks with them afterwards – it was quite extraordinary. Seeing Broadway shows for the first time, musicals, they were at a pitch of performances which I had never seen in England.

It was like the cast saying “we are for you, we are yours, you bought us for the evening, here we are body and soul”.

Did having that experience of working in New York in the sixties, help you with the creation of Wonderful Town?

No, it was an absolute disaster, it was an appalling experience. I had a producer who was completely bonkers and although the show had been a huge hit in England and was at least as good if not better with a fully professional cast and some big stars in New York, she took it off in one night. So it wasn’t a very happy experience from that point of view.

But the energy and excitement of New York at that time is helping?

Oh that is when I first met Wonderful Town, and I thought oh this is the New York energy which hits you, it’s like nowhere else in the world I have ever been to, you can almost see a kind of energy pulsing through the streets and between the people. Wonderful Town captures that absolutely.

You have had an incredibly long and rich career, how do you feel about Wonderful Town being your swan song for the Royal Exchange?

Well I hope I’ll be allowed back again to do other things.

If it was the very last one then it would be a bit peculiar because it’s not at the Royal Exchange. But on the other hand it is such as fantastic experience, it means, I hope, we will go out singing and dancing.

Does this feel like a good way to go out?

Yeah!

What will you bring to Wonderful Town that the Broadway and West End Versions didn’t?

Well I never saw the Broadway or West End versions so I’ve no idea. From the point of view of the choreography it is so original that it is nothing like what happened before and people who have seen it before either on Broadway or in London and have seen the routines will say “My god this is completely different and original and very exciting”.

Also I think that we now pay more attention to the emotional content and the storytelling of the piece, the actors don’t just bang it out and it’s done with a greater genuine subtlety and heart.

Sir Mark Elder has been Music Director of the Hallé since September 2000. He was Music Director of English National Opera between 1979 and 1993, Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1992 – 1995, and Music Director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in the USA from 1989 – 1994. He has also held positions as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Mozart Players.

He has worked with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic and London Symphony. In the UK he enjoys close associations with both the London Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Sir Mark Elder has appeared annually at the Proms in London for many years, including, in 1987 and 2006, the internationally televised Last Night of the Proms and from 2003 with the Hallé.

He works regularly in the most prominent international opera houses, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera New York, Opéra National de Paris, Lyric Opera Chicago, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, and other guest engagements have taken him to the Bayreuth Festival (where he was the first English conductor to conduct a new production), Amsterdam, Zürich, Geneva, Berlin and Sydney.

During his years at ENO he brought international acclaim to the company for its work in London, as well as leading tours to the USA (including the Met in New York) and Russia (including the Bolshoi in Moscow and the Mariinsky in St Petersburg).

Sir Mark Elder has made many recordings with orchestras including the Hallé, London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and Rochester Philharmonic, as well as with English National Opera, in repertoire ranging from Verdi, Strauss and Wagner to contemporary music. In 2003 the Hallé launched its own CD label and releases have met with universal critical acclaim culminating in Gramophone Awards for The Dream of Gerontius in 2009, Götterdämmerung and Elgar’s Violin Concerto in 2010, and Elgar’s The Kingdom in 2011. In collaboration with the director Barrie Gavin, he made a two-part film on the life and music of Verdi for BBC TV in 1994, which was followed by a similar project on Donizetti for German television in 1996. In November 2011 he co-presented BBCTV’s four-part series Symphony.

Recent opera recordings include Donizetti’s Dom Sebastien, Imelda di Lambertazzi, Linda di Chamounix and most recently Maria di Rohan for Opera Rara. In April 2011, he took up the position of Artistic Director of Opera Rara, with whom he is planning several recording projects over the next five years.

Recent and forthcoming symphonic engagements, apart from his commitment to the Hallé, include the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Russian National Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, Gürzenich Orchester, China Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Australian Youth Orchestra, London Philharmonic, London Symphony, Britten Sinfonia, Aldeburgh World Orchestra and the OAE. He also conducted the Hallé in the 2011 BBC Proms. Operatic engagements include King Roger at the Bregenz Festival, Tannhäuser at the Opéra National de Paris, Billy Budd for Glyndebourne and several productions for Covent Garden, including The Tsar’s Bride, Fidelio and La bohème.

Sir Mark Elder was knighted in 2008, and was awarded the CBE in 1989. He won an Olivier Award in 1991 for his outstanding work at ENO and in May 2006 he was named Conductor of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society.

He was appointed Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and awarded Honorary Membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2011.

What was your first experience of Leonard Bernstein?

An LP of West Side Story – which I listened to constantly when I was a child.

Why this piece, and why now?

The Royal Exchange, The Lowry and The Hallé wanted to collaborate, and a musical seemed the obvious way to do it.

We chose Wonderful Town because it is an engaging, brilliant and very funny piece – which, though not as well known as some of his other works, is one of his greatest creations.

What’s so distinctive about the score of Wonderful Town?

Bernstein had said in 1952 he had no plans to write another musical but the idea of a piece set in the 1930s was hugely attractive to him. He took it on - and wrote it in a matter of weeks - as much as anything for the opportunity to write music in a 30s jazz pastiche style.

Leonard Bernstein said that “When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.” Which is he to you?

He was a very great conductor as, for example, was Mahler. The fact that Bernstein is no longer with us means that, quite obviously, it is his compositions that live on rather than his fame as a conductor. However it seems to me that one of his great strengths as a composer is that he was a master conductor and understood the orchestra perfectly.

As a conductor, how do you adjust from Wagner to a Broadway musical? Are the skills very different?

There are differences and similarities. The Wonderful Town orchestra is essentially a big string section with a big band. I think of it as a Wagner orchestra that swings!

Is it difficult to get a symphony orchestra to swing?

Not the Hallé – they are brilliant at this kind of music and do it a lot.

How is performing in an orchestra pit different from playing in a concert hall? Are there any secrets to it?

In a pit conditions are more cramped for the players and balancing sound internally, and with the singers, presents a significant challenge – particularly when the voices are amplified.

Operatic and West End singers have different vocal styles – do they require a different approach from the conductor?

Yes, absolutely. In a musical performers have to worry about dancing, acting, dialogue and the production, in addition to singing. They are all multifaceted and multitalented performers and, together with my Associate, Jamie Burton, my job is to make the musical standards as high as possible.

Who steers the production – conductor or director?

As is the case with any work of music theatre – be it by Mozart, Puccini or Bernstein - the best results come from good collaboration. In the case of Wonderful Town an additional key role is that of the choreographer and we are very lucky indeed to have the marvellously talented Andrew Wright as part of the team.

Do you have further ambitions to conduct musicals? And which one(s)?

One of the pieces Braham and I considered when settling on Wonderful Town was the musical The Most Happy Fella by Frank Loesser. It’s a great piece with a marvellous book and memorable songs that require terrific singing. I would love to do it at some point in the future.

Andrew Wright (Choreographer)

Andrew was educated at Millfield School and trained with the NYMT and at Arts Ed. Theatre credits includes: Singin’ in the Rain (Chichester Festival Theatre, Best Choreographer nomination Broadway World Awards 2011 and Best Musical Production nomination UK Theatre Awards 2011); 42nd Street (Chichester Festival Theatre and Leicester Curve, Best Regional Production nomination What’s On Stage Awards 2011); The Critic/The Real Inspector Hound (Minerva Theatre, Chichester); The Showgirl Within (Garrick); Nunsense A-Men and Naked Boys Singing (Arts); Almost Like Being in Love (National Theatre); Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi (Liverpool Playhouse, Union and Trafalgar Studios, Best Choreographer nomination Broadway World Awards 2010, Best Musical Production UK Theatre Awards 2008 and Best Regional Production nomination What’s On Stage Awards 2008); By Jeeves (Landor); I Sing (Union) and Soul Traders (Edinburgh Fringe).

As assistant director and co-choreographer: Chess in Concert starring Josh Groban and Idina Menzel (Royal Albert Hall) and The Night of 1000 Voices (Royal Albert Hall and Odyssey Belfast); the Cat Stevens musical Moonshadow (Drill Hall); Cantabile at Christmas (Prince of Wales); Elaine Paige’s 2006 Concert (Lyceum and European tour); 1000 Voices at the Arena (Sheffield Arena); Robot Wars – The Live Event (UK stadium tour) and Evita (Leeds Grand).

Workshops include: A Painted Lady, The Stephanie Lawrence Project, The Ghost and Mrs Muir and Beach Radio.

Other credits include: Dick Whittington and Cinderella (Bristol Hippodrome and Wyvern); Snow White (Manchester Opera House and Bristol Hippodrome); Lysistrata, Godspell, Blood Wedding, The Canterbury Tales and Hot Mikado (Eton College, Farrer Theatre); Curtains, The Drowsy Chaperone, My Favorite Year, 42nd Street, Spend, Spend, Spend!, Putting It Together and State Fair (Arts Ed) and My Favorite Year (Guildhall School of Music and Drama).

Performance credits include: Scrooge (London Palladium), Mary Poppins (Prince Edward), Anything Goes (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), Cats (New London), Follies (Royal Festival Hall), Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (Dominion and UK tour), La Cava and Mack and Mabel (Piccadilly), Oliver!

(Sadler’s Wells), Dick Whittington – London’s Musical (Sadler’s Wells), Fred Astaire: His Daughter’s Tribute (London Palladium), A Chorus Line (Derby Playhouse and UK tour), Pickwick (UK tour) and The Time of My Life (Bristol Old Vic). He has appeared in two Royal Variety Performances and recorded five original London cast recordings.

Andrew has just been nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer for Singing in The Rain.

Simon Higlett

Chris Davey

Designs for 2012 include: Singin’ In The Rain (West End), The Lady From The Sea (Rose Theatre Kingston), The Real Thing (English Touring Theatre), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and A Marvellous Year For Plums (Chichester Festival Theatre) and The Magic Flute (Scottish Opera).

Previous Designs at The Royal Exchange include Two, The Bacchae, As You Like It, The Pianist, Everyone Loves a Winner, Hay Fever, The Way of the World, Nude with Violin, A Woman of No Importance and The Illusionist.

(Designer)

Amongst other recent designs: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Chichester and Theatre Royal Haymarket), Henry lV Parts 1 and 2 (Bath), Yes, Prime Minister, When We Are Married, The Rivals, PCollaboration and Taking Sides (all West End), The Merry Wives of Windsor (Stockholm), Haunted (tour, NYC and Australia), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Gate, Dublin), The School of Night (Los Angeles), An Ideal Husband and Mrs Warren’s Profession (Shakespeare Theatre, Washington D.C.) and The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro (Scottish Opera).

Highlights from earlier credits include: The Glass Menagerie (Royal Exchange Manchester), Pygmalion (Old Vic and Hong Kong), Enemies, The Earthly Paradise & Whistling Psyche (all Almeida), Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Donmar), Thomas More, The Russian in the Woods and Singer (all Royal Shakespeare Company), The Force of Change and Clubland (Royal Court) and Amy’s View, Hay Fever, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Man and Boy, Of Mice and Men and Nicholas Nickleby (all West End).

Worldwide opera designs include: Giulio Cesare, Resurrection, Don Giovanni, La Traviata, La bohème, La Cenerentola and Cosí fan tutte. Simon is the winner of two TMA Best Design Awards.

(Lighting Designer)

Chris designed The Madness of an Extraordinary Thing for Manchester International Festival played by the Hallé at the Bridgewater Hall.

For the National Theatre: Or You Could Kiss Me, Beyond the Horizon, Spring Storm, Harper Regan, The Seagull, The Pillars of the Community, A Dream Play, Iphiginia at Aulis, War and Peace, Baby Doll and The Colour of Justice.

For the RSC: Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Cymbeline, Alice in Wonderland, Night of the Soul, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night`s Dream, Everyman (both also in New York) A Month in the Country, Troilus and Cressida, The Comedy of Errors (world tour) Mysteria and Easter.

Chris has designed extensively for Shared Experience Theatre, Royal Court, Hampstead Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, Royal Exchange Manchester, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh and Birmingham Rep. Other designs include, Shoes Sadler’s Wells, Carlos Acosta Premières London Coliseum, King Lear West Yorkshire Playhouse, Matthew Bourne’s Lord of the Flies New Adventures; She Loves Me Chichester Festival Theatre, The Last Witch Edinburgh International Festival / Traverse, Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man Sadler’s Wells/Old Vic and international tour.

Opera includes Romeo et Juliette Opera Ireland, Hippolyte et Aricie Nationale Reisopera Netherlands, L’Arbore di Diana Valencia, I Capuleti E I Montecchi Opera North, Melbourne, Sydney Opera House, Skellig The Sage Gateshead, Aida Houston, Bird of Night Royal Opera House, Bluebeard Bregenz, Jephtha English National Opera / Welsh National Opera, Copenhagen, The Magic Flute Welsh National Opera, eight seasons for Grange Park Opera, The Rake’s Progress, The Turn of the Screw Aldeburgh Festival, The Picture of Dorian Gray Monte Carlo.

Chris won the TMA Best Lighting Design for Dial M for Murder (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Beyond the Horizon (Royal and Derngate, Northampton).

Clement Rawling (Sound Designer)

Clement was born in Liverpool and after five years as Chief Technician at Liverpool Playhouse formed MAC Sound to offer complete sound facilities for theatre.

Clement designed sound for the West End premières of Phantom Of The Opera (followed by an extensive tour of Japan) and The Invisible Man both by Ken Hill, Sophisticated Ladies, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Sweet Charity, and was also responsible for the extensive sound requirements of the Carl Alan Awards, Fairuz at Olympia and the opening of the famous Blackpool Rollercoaster involving a half mile open air sound system, all with The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.

He has designed sound for world premières of La Cava the Musical, The Haunted Hotel, Zorro The Musical, Marlene with Sian Phillips and the concert version of Jesus Christ Superstar, The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber in the National Opera House of Ukraine, the Breeze one-day multi-stage open air rock festival and Opera in the Park for audiences of sixty thousand.

Unusual designs have ranged from arena systems for Chess, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Fame and the Russian State Ballet in the 6500-seat Spectrum Arena, Oslo to the other extreme of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature for fifteen consecutive years.

Clement’s recent designs include productions of Cyrano, Take 5 and The Nutcracker at the O2 Arena for Birmingham Royal Ballet, Bounce The Street Dance Sensation in Holland and South Africa, national tours of The Shell Seekers, Boogie Nights, Hot Flush, Terms of Endearment, Private Lives, Last of the Summer Wine, Gotta Sing Gotta Dance and Spend, Spend, Spend!, Catwalk Confidential in the West End and Miami and the European première of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas the Musical.

James Burton

(Associate Musical Director Tour Conductor) James Burton was head chorister at Westminster Abbey, a choral scholar at St John’s College Cambridge where he read music, and he holds a Master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the Peabody Conservatory where his teachers were Frederik Prausnitz and Gustav Meier. James will give his ENO debut next season with Don Giovanni and will conduct The Magic Flute for Garsington this summer. In 2013 he will assist on the American premiere of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys at the Metropolitan Opera. Other assisting credits include Arabella, Ariadne auf Naxos, Faust, The Rake’s Progress, Satyagraha, Tannhäuser, Tosca with ENO, Opera National de Paris and Garsington. In 2008 James was presented Garsington’s Leonard Ingrams award for outstanding work with the company.

James’s musical theatre credits include MD for Hard Times in the West End in 2000.

James has conducted concerts with RLPO, OAE, Oxford Philomusica. He is a frequent guest conductor of the Hallé and is Music Director of the St Endellion Easter Festival in Cornwall. He is one of the country’s leading choral conductors, and has worked with Gabrieli Consort, Wrocław Philharmonic Choir and BBC Singers. From 2002-9 James was the Hallé’s Choral Director, and under his leadership the Hallé Choir and Youth Choir, which he founded in 2003, received outstanding critical coverage for their performances. Their recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius received the 2009 Gramophone choral award.

James is a passionate advocate for young musicians, and he has worked with National Youth Choir of Great Britain, Genesis Sixteen, RNCM and Oxford University Orchestra. Since 2002 James has been Music Director of Schola Cantorum of Oxford, appearing frequently on BBC TV and radio. They have released acclaimed recordings on Hyperion and given concert tours of Mexico, Argentina and China. James is founder director of the RNCM Chamber Choir and recently conducted the debut concert by the RNCM’s Symphony Chorus.

James’ composition credits include The Convergence of the Twain, a large-scale setting of Thomas Hardy’s Titanic-inspired poem which premiered at St Endellion in April 2012, On Christmas Night, a carol for chorus and orchestra, and an orchestral album with Arlo Guthrie. In 2010 James composed the theme music and fanfare for the opening ceremony of the World Equestrian Games, which was broadcast worldwide.

Richard Ryder (Dialect Coach)

After graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama in 2004 with a M.A. in Voice Studies, he began teaching at East 15 Acting School. From 2007 – 2011 he was Head of Voice (Southend) at East 15. During this time he also developed his professional work in theatre, film and TV. Between 2005 – 2010 he was voice and dialect coach for Creation Theatre in Oxford and in 2011 worked in the voice department of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has also been dialect coach for West Yorkshire Playhouse, Queens Theatre Hornchurch, Queens Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue London, Salisbury Playhouse, Arcola, Polka, Finborough and Theatre Centre.

Richard also works with business clients for voice and presentation work and coaches international speakers who are need of Standard British English Accent development.

Rania Jumaily (Associate Director)

Rania Jumaily is Artistic Director of The Last Refuge She trained at Bristol University and Birkbeck College. Her directing includes Oh! What a Lovely War and Much Ado About Nothing (Oval House); The Threepenny Opera (Lost Theatre); West End Glee Club (Edinburgh Festival); Over The Moon (Wimbledon Studio Theatre); First Lady Suite (UK première at the Union Theatre) and The Bully Composition (Southwark Playhouse).

As Assistant Director, theatre credits include: The Flags, A Conversation, An Ideal Husband, Roots, The Children’s Hour and Three Sisters (all at Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); Everybody Loves a Winner (Manchester International Festival) and Kafka’s Dick (Watford Palace Theatre).

Sylvia Addison

Lee Menzies

Sylvia is one of London’s foremost Orchestral Contractors and clients include theatre producers, composers, conductors, orchestrators, record producers and vocal artists in many fields of the music industry.

Current productions include: the first ever stage version of Irving Berlin’s musical Top Hat (Aldwych Theatre, London), Doctor in the House (National Tour) and the third national tour of Yes, Prime Minister. In development are the musical of From Here to Eternity which he is co-producing with Tim Rice who has also written the lyrics and a new play

by Gavin Esler. Recent productions include: Crazy For You (Novello Theatre), David Grindley’s multi-awardwinning production of Journey’s End (Duke of York’s Theatre and UK tour), Butley (Duchess Theatre), the national tours of Tell Me on a Sunday, Cowardy Custard, Yes, Prime Minister (Apollo and Gielgud Theatre), Jerusalem (Apollo), Enron (Broadhurst, New York), Prick Up Your Ears (Comedy), Twelfth Night (Noël Coward), Otherwise Engaged (UK tour and Criterion), Donkeys’ Years (Comedy), Whipping It Up with Richard Wilson (Ambassadors). Also, four productions with Peter Hall – Twelfth Night, The Rose Tattoo with Julie Walters and Ken Stott, Tartuffe with Paul Eddington, Felicity Kendall, John Sessions, Toby Stephens and Jennifer Ehle, and Hedda Gabler with Fiona Shaw (Olivier Award for Best Revival). Jeffrey Archer’s three plays Beyond Reasonable Doubt (Queen’s), Exclusive (Novello) and The Accused (Theatre Royal, Haymarket), the NT production of The Island (Old Vic and UK tour, EMMA Award), Jus’ Like That! (Garrick and three UK tours) and Kat and the Kings (Vaudeville, New York Cort, Frankfurt and UK tour, eight Olivier Awards including Best New Musical).

(Tour Orchestra Manager)

Theatre credits include: Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary (Royal Albert Hall and tour); Ghost, The Wizard of Oz, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Lend Me a Tenor and Betty Blue Eyes (London 2011); Les Misérables 25th Anniversary (02 Arena and West End); Love Never Dies and Sweet Charity (London 2010); Latin Fever (London 2009 and UK tour 2010); Legally Blonde, Oliver! and A Little Night Music (London 2009); We Will Rock You (London and UK tour 2009); The Witches of Eastwick and Dorian Gray (UK tour 2008/9); Carousel, La Cage aux Folles and Gone with the Wind (London 2008); Lord of the Rings, Bad Girls, Drowsy Chaperone and Fiddler on the Roof (London 2007); Daddy Cool (London 2006); Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Evita, Acorn Antiques The Musical!,The Woman in White, Tell Me on a Sunday, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bombay Dreams and The Full Monty (London and UK tour); Irving Berlin’s White Christmas The Musical (European première); Play Without Words, Five Guys Named Moe, Phantom of the Opera, Cats and Starlight Express (London); Jesus Christ Superstar (London, Germany and UK tour); The Beautiful Game, Whistle Down the Wind, By Jeeves, Sunset Boulevard, Grease and Closer to Heaven.

Gareth Johnson (General Manager)

In Stage, Company, Production and General Management, as well as Production Consultancy and as a Producer, Gareth has worked on over 100 productions in the West End and on Tour. Producers worked with include: Michael Codron, Nica Burns, Thelma Holt, Lee Menzies, Tara Arts, Mark Rubinstein, Lee Dean, Act Productions and Stoll Moss Theatres. Directors and Writers worked with include: Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Michael Frayn, Simon Gray, Harold Pinter, Sir Tom Stoppard, Sir Ronald Harwood, Peter Dews, Peter Wood, Sir Trevor Nunn, David Grindley, Timothy Sheader, Gale Edwards, Jatinder Verma, Simon Callow, Athol Fugard, Michael Blakemore, Alan Strachan, Richard Wilson, Sam Mendes, Michael Rudman, Patrick Marber, and Anthony Minghella.

He has also worked as an actor at Reps such as Birmingham, on TV and Radio in plays, serials and series such as Troubleshooters, Trial, Cause Celebre and The Archers.

He serves on the boards of Tara Arts and Theatr Mwldan, and has worked with Arts Council of Wales in an advisory capacity. He devised and runs annually a course at RADA about Producing and General Management.

(Producer)

Kenny Wax (Producer)

Kenny has produced Top Hat (Aldwych Theatre and UK tour); Once On This Island (Royalty Theatre) which won the Olivier Award for Best Musical; Brian May and Kerry Ellis in Anthems (UK tour); The Shape of Things (New Ambassadors Theatre); Maddie (Lyric Theatre); Olivier Award Nominee 2012 The Tiger Who Came To Tea (Vaudeville Theatre); The Gruffalo (Criterion, Duchess and Apollo Theatres); Room on the Broom (Garrick Theatre) and We’re Going On A Bearhunt (Duchess). He has recently produced tours of The Witches of Eastwick starring Marti Pellow and Aspects of Love starring David Essex. Kenny has co-produced with PW Productions in the West End and on tour Stephen Daldry’s multi-award-winning National Theatre Production of JB Preistley’s classic thriller An Inspector Calls.

Other touring credits as Producer include: the National Theatres Production of the Olivier Awardwinning musical Honk! directed by Julia Mckenzie; Ben Elton’s Gasping starring David Haig; Gerald Moon’s Corpse; Something Wonderful – a tribute to Rodgers & Hammerstein; Rosamunde Pilcher’s The Shell Seekers starring Stephanie Cole, Rosemary Leach and Susannah York; My Boy Jack starring David Haig and Belinda Lang; Arsenic and Old Lace with Angela Thorne; Marrying the Mistress adapted from the Joanna Trollope novel; and Hobson’s Choice starring John Savident (Co-Production with Chichester Festival Theatre). Other children’s touring shows include Mr Stink adapted from the book by David Walliams, Mr Benn and Stuart Little.

He has been General Manager for: the world première of Pete Townshend’s Rock Opera Quadrophenia; Chess in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall for Sir Tim Rice; Time Of My Life for Sir Cameron Mackintosh (Bristol Old Vic); The Night of 1000 Voices (Royal Albert Hall); and The Woman in Black for PW Productions for 5 years at the Fortune theatre.

Flora Suk-Hwa Yoon (Producer)

Flora Suk-Hwa Yoon has been a stellar icon of stage drama for the last 35 years in Korea, during which time she has attained unmatched fame and reputation as a legendary actress, stage performer, director and producer.

Most recently Flora has produced the first ever musical version of Irving Berlin’s Top Hat and R.C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London’s West End. Flora made her stage debut in 1975 in Taste of Honey. She performed as Lead Actress in 47 plays and musicals including Letter to a Daughter (by Arnold Wesker, world première in 1992), Agnes of God (1983, 1999, 2008), Guys & Dolls (1987, 1994), La Voix Humaine (1989), Song and Dance (1986), Master Class (1998), Saturday Night Fever (2003, 2004), Wit (2005) and The Merchant of Venice (2009).

She also produced and directed a number of plays and musicals such as Song and Dance (1987), Saturday Night Fever (2003, 2004), Wit (2005), Agnes of God (2008) and I’m You! (2010).

Flora has been the publisher of Gaeksuk (Auditorium, Monthly Journal of Performing Arts), the oldest and most respected journal in performing arts in Korea; proprietor of The Theatre ‘Jung-Mi-So’ and The Gallery ‘Jung-Mi-So’; and CEO of Stone Flower Co. Ltd., which has produced diverse variety of films, dramas, musicals, concerts and exhibitions.

She has won a number of prizes and awards including the Baek-Sang Best Actress of the Year (1984, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1996), Yi Hae Rang Drama Award (1998) and Presidential Medal of Honor (2009).

Flora studied drama at New York University (New York, NY) and attended Drama Institute at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA).

Hallé Orchestra

Orchestra

Sat 31 March - Sat 14 April

Mon 16 - Sat 21 April

First Violins

Saxophones

Conductor

Lyn Fletcher Leader Sarah Ewins Associate Leader Tiberiu Buta Anya Muston Zoe Colman Peter Liang Alison Hunt † Helen Bridges Nicola Clark Victor Hayes John Gralak Michelle Marsh

James Muirhead † Robert Buckland Andy Wilson Val Stark Carl Raven

James Burton

Second Violins Catherine Yates Section Leader Philippa Heys Paulette Bayley Julia Hanson Caroline Abbott † Grania Royce † Elizabeth Bosworth John Purton Hannah Smith Belinda Hammond

Violas Timothy Pooley † Section Leader Julian Mottram † Tom Beer Piero Gasparini † Robert Criswell † Sue Voysey † Chris Emerson Sue Baker

Flutes Katherine Baker Section Leader Joanne Boddington

Piccolo Ronald Marlowe †

Oboes

Viola Dan Manente

Cello Rebecca Leyton

Double Bass Joe Pettitt

Flute/Clarinet/ Eb Clarinet/Alto Sax

Bassoons

James Muirhead

Steven Magee Ben Hudson

Trumpets Gareth Small Section Leader Tom Osborne Russell Bennett Andrew Dallimore

Tenor Trombones Katy Jones Section Leader Roz Davies

Bass Trombone Adrian Morris

Timpani

Nicholas Trygstad Section Leader Simon Turner Dale Culliford David Petri † Jane Hallett Clare Rowe Julie-Anne Manning

John Abendstern Erika Öhman

Roberto Carrillo-Garcia Section Leader Daniel Storer Yi Xin Han † Beatrice Schirmer Rachel Meerloo

Yuri Kalnits

Hugh McKenna † Thomas Davey †

Cellos

Double Basses

Violin

Percussion David Hext † Section Leader Riccardo Lorenzo Parmigiani

Clarinet/Bass Clarinet/ Alto Sax Nigel Hailwood

Clarinet/Tenor Sax Rob Cope

Flute/Piccolo/Clarinet/ Tenor Sax Naomi Sullivan

Clarinet/Alto Sax/ Baritone Sax Carl Raven

Trumpet

Russell Bennett Andrew Dallimore

Trumpet/Flugel

Matt Palmer

Keyboard

Trombone

Rob Houssart

Richard Wigley Ashley Horton

Kit Ben Gray

Kit/Percussion Ben Gray

† 20 years service

Keyboard/Assistant MD Ben Kennedy

tours, frequent broadcasts and televised performances.

Markus Stenz is the Hallé’s second Principal Guest Conductor and 2011-12 marks his third season in post.

Colin Matthews is the Hallé’s Composer Emeritus and Helen Grime is the Associate Composer.

The Hallé’s family of ensembles includes the Hallé Choir, which was founded alongside the orchestra in 1858, and is directed by Frances Cooke, Hallé Choir Director; the Youth Orchestra directed by the Hallé’s Assistant Conductor, Andrew Gourlay; the Children’s Choir directed

by Shirley Court; and the Youth Choir directed by Richard Wilberforce.

© Joel Chester Fildes

The Hallé has its own CD label, which features in particular the music of English composers especially Elgar and Colin Matthews, as well as Debussy, Wagner and Shostakovich. The latest releases include Vaughan Williams’s ‘London’ Symphony and Oboe Concerto, and English Spring, a collection of brilliant impressionistic English orchestral works. The Hallé’s highly acclaimed recordings have been honoured with prestigious awards including five Gramophone Awards in the past three years – Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius (2009); Wagner’s Götterdämmerung and Elgar’s Violin Concerto (2010); and Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Night’s Black Bird and Elgar’s The Kingdom (2011).

Founded in Manchester by the pianist and conductor Sir Charles Hallé in 1858, the Hallé gave its first concert in the city’s Free Trade Hall on 30 January of that year.

Following the death of Sir Charles Hallé, the orchestra continued to develop under the guidance of such distinguished figures as Dr Hans Richter, Sir Hamilton Harty and Sir John Barbirolli.

Mark Elder became Music Director in 2000 and was knighted by the Queen for services to music in 2008.

The Royal Philharmonic Society has honoured both the Hallé and Sir Mark separately, including Honorary Membership for Sir Mark in November 2011. In January of that year, the South Bank Sky Arts Award was presented to the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic for their joint performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, part of a high-profile anniversary cycle of Mahler’s symphonies in partnership with Manchester Camerata and The Bridgewater Hall. The Hallé had previously won the South Bank Show Classical Music Award for collaborations with the BBC Philharmonic and the Royal Northern College of Music, as well as with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

The Hallé performs over 70 concerts a year in The Bridgewater Hall, its Manchester home, as well as making over 40 appearances annually throughout the rest of Britain. The Hallé attracts large and enthusiastic audiences in Manchester and beyond, and its reputation for artistic excellence and versatility has led to many international

Last season over a quarter of a million people heard the Hallé, of which more than 30,000 were inspired by the Hallé’s pioneering education programme. Generating over 60 projects a year, it exists to create a wider enjoyment and understanding of music throughout the whole community. The Hallé is a registered charity.

Visit our website at www.halle.co.uk View our new digital content at www.halleplay.co.uk Follow the Hallé at www.twitter.com/the_halle Like the Hallé at www.facebook.com/thehalle Subscribe to the Hallé’s monthly e-mail newsletter at www.halle.co.uk/sign-up Registered Charity No.223882.

The Royal Exchange Theatre is a Manchesterbased producing theatre company (founded 1976) housed in the Royal Exchange Building in the centre of the city.

The building has two performance spaces – the Theatre, a 750 seat module configured in the round sited in the Royal Exchange Great Hall and The Studio, a 90 seat flexible format space.

The company has an additional workshop and rehearsal space in the Northern Quarter area of the city. The company produces and presents an eclectic theatre programme across 48 weeks of each year. Most of this is created and produced by the company itself in collaboration with freelance creative teams and individual artists, other theatre companies and communities. We also present work created by other companies who visit the theatre as part of national or regional tours. Additionally the company’s work transfers and tours nationally and internationally.

The company also runs a significant learning and participation programme in collaboration with schools and community organisations with a focus on young people, education, community groups and interested adults. The development of new and emerging theatre making talent also plays a key part in the company’s work. This talent includes directors, writers, makers, designers and actors.

Originally the city’s cotton trading exchange, the Great Hall itself is a visitor destination, housing a craft shop, café, bar, restaurant, gallery and information about the building’s heritage and recent history. Visitors are welcomed to the Great Hall seven days a week.

As part of an ongoing commitment to making work that is more environmentally sustainable, LED lights have been built into the set for Wonderful Town to make New York light up. The Royal Exchange have used these as they demand a fraction of the energy of normal lighting and bulbs last much longer. The support of Manchester City Galleries, Renaissance via Manchester City Council and Small Change Big Change initiative as part of the Green Museums/ Manchester Cultural Leaders Environmental Forum and Julie’s Bicycle is gratefully acknowledged in helping to do this.

Registered Charity No.255424.

Visit our website at royalexchange.co.uk Follow the Royal Exchange at twitter.com/rxtheatre Like the Royal Exchange at facebook.com/royalexchangetheatre

Since opening its doors in 2000, The Lowry has become a landmark North West venue for art and entertainment.

More than 850,000 people saw a performance in the theatres, visited the galleries or participated in a community and education event last year. This helped make The Lowry the most visited attraction in Greater Manchester for the second year running.

Over the past twelve years The Lowry has brought some of the world’s most talented performers and finest artists to Salford Quays. And through relationships with ‘Lowry Partner Companies’ Opera North, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Rambert Dance Company and the National Theatre, The Lowry also acts as a Northern home for some of this country’s most exceptional artistic organisations.

The development of new and exciting work is central to The Lowry’s activity. This production of Wonderful Town is a landmark artistic collaboration for The Lowry, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. The Lowry’s Dance Company in Residence, Company Chameleon, have just embarked on a national tour and the award-winning Theatre Ad Infinitum will become ‘Associate Artists’ from 2012. Alongside this, The Studio ‘Developed With’ programme is working with some of the most exciting artists and emerging companies in the North West.

In the visual arts, we’re just as eager to engage with new ideas. The work of LS Lowry stands alongside an exciting programme of new exhibitions and commissions which challenge the boundaries between performing and visual arts. Recent examples include Warhol and the Diva, a new exhibition exploring the artist’s relationship with some of the world’s performance elite, and the current exhibition, The House of Annie Lennox, which offers a unique insight into one of the UK’s most successful musical artists.

At the heart of everything The Lowry does is a commitment to building deep-rooted relationships with communities in Salford and beyond. The innovative community residency programme, Walkabout, is spending this year in Salford’s Lower Broughton. Walkabout works in partnership with local people to devise and present arts-based events and initiatives that explore fundamental issues close to home.

The Lowry will always look for new ways to provide everyone, especially children and young people, with the opportunity to be inspired by great art - both in the community and at The Lowry.

The Lowry has become a beacon for the regenerative power of the arts. Just twenty five years ago, the site on which The Lowry stands had approached the end of its life as a working dock. In 2011, with MediaCityUK opening its doors for the first time, Salford Quays is entering a new era. Together with partners including the BBC and the University of Salford, The Lowry aims to make Salford Quays the most exciting cultural and media destination in the world.

You can find out more by visiting www.thelowry.com/about-the-lowry, or you can read the annual review online at www.thelowryreview.com The Lowry Centre Trust is a not-for-profit charitable organisation and registered charity (no. 1053962). All income supports our world-class Theatres and Galleries programme, the care and display of the LS Lowry Collection and our life-changing Community and Education work.

For Wonderful Town Scenery supplied and painted by Set Up Scenery Additional scenery made by The Royal Exchange Theatre Props and Settings Department supervised by

Neil Gidley with help from Simon Pemberton, Will Gaskell, Sue Ross and Ro Cohen Props made by MarcusHall Props and the Royal Exchange Theatre Props & Setting Department Lighting equipment supplied by White Light Sound equipment supplied by MAC Sound Costumes made by Rose Calderbank, Sasha Keir, Wi Skeet, Hilary Wili, Robert Gordon, Mark Costello,

Stagewear Unlimited, Leslie Woolford, Jill Fairburn and Charlotte Sweet Millinery by Jane Smith Additional costumes supplied by Flame Torbay Costume Hire Ltd Additional wardrobe support by The Royal Exchange Theatre Company Wardrobe Department Transport provided by Paul Mathew Transport With thanks to Shepperton Wigs Tour Marketing Manager Tour Press and PR

Marketing Consultant

Helen Snell (020 7240 5537) Marika Player for Target Live (020 3372 0960) Guy Chapman for Target Live

For the Royal Exchange Theatre on Wonderful Town Executive Director

Senior Producer Director of Finance Company Manager Production Manager Casting Director Casting Associate Development Manager Marketing Director Press Officer

Fiona Gasper Richard Morgan Barry James Lee Drinkwater Simon Curtis Jerry Knight-Smith Polly Jerrold Gina Fletcher Clare Simpson John Goodfellow

For the Hallé on Wonderful Town Hallé Concerts Society Music Director Sir Mark Elder CBE Leader Lyn Fletcher PR Valerie Barber PR For The Lowry on Wonderful Town Chairman Sir Rod Aldridge OBE Chief Executive Julia Fawcett Artistic Director Robert Robson Group Finance Director Jon Brabbin Commercial Director Tony Smith Policy and Development Director Stephen Crocker Marketing Director Jon Gilchrist Head of Theatres Programming David Fry Technical Manager Dave Woodward Technical Stage Manager Phil Maxim Head of Marketing Janina Mundy Head of Media Relations Michelle Bowey Print and Publications Manager Kate Fitzgerald For Lee Menzies Ltd General Manager Gareth Johnson Associate Producer Jacob Wagen Production Assistant Carla Morris For Kenny Wax Ltd Production Assistant Stage One Apprentice Producer Programme Design www.kevinlloyddesign.co.uk

Adam Paulden Helen Johnson

2012 UK Tour The Wonderful Towns our production is visiting…

Tue 24 – Sat 28 April

MILTON KEYNES Theatre

0844 871 7652

Tue 1 – Sat 5 May

SHEFFIELD Lyceum Theatre

0114 249 6000

Tue 8 – Sat 12 May

GLASGOW King’s Theatre

0844 871 7647

Tue 15 – Sat 19 May

NOTTINGHAM Theatre Royal

0115 989 5555

Tue 22 – Sat 26 May

BIRMINGHAM Hippodrome

0844 338 5000

Tue 29 May – Sat 2 June

SOUTHAMPTON Mayflower Theatre

02380 711 811

Tue 5 – Sat 9 June

NORWICH Theatre Royal

01603 63 00 00

Tue 12 – Sat 16 June

NEWCASTLE Theatre Royal

08448 11 21 21

Tue 19 – Sat 23 June

WOKING New Victoria Theatre

0844 871 7645

Tue 26 – Sat 30 June

PLYMOUTH Theatre Royal

01752 230 440

Tue 3 – Sat 7 July

CARDIFF Wales Millennium Centre

029 2063 6464

www.wonderfultown.co.uk