VIOLET is a multi award-winning musical based on the short story The Ugliest Pilgrim by Doris Betts. Music by Jeanine Tesori (Tony Award winner for Best Original Score with Lisa Kron for the musical Fun Home, and Tony nominated scores for Caroline, Or Change, Shrek The Musical and Thoroughly Modern Millie), Book & Lyrics by Brian Crawley. VIOLET premiered Off-Broadway and won the Drama Critics' Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award as Best Musical, before a Broadway revival where it was nominated for four Tony Awards. This is the UK premiere.

1964. Somewhere between North Carolina and Oklahoma, we find Violet, a young woman who hopes her life savings will bring her a miracle halfway across the country. Reflecting on her childhood, and shaped by the reactions of the people she encounters, Violet embarks on a life-changing personal journey.

Creative team: Director Shuntaro Fujita, Choreographer Cressida Carré, Set Design Morgan Large, Costume Jonathan Lipman, Lighting Howard Hudson, Sound Andrew Johnson, Music Director Dan Jackson, Associate Music Director Chris Ma, Production Supervisor Thom Southerland

Casting: Kaisa Hammarlund as Violet, Matthew Harvey as Monty, Jay Marsh as Flick, Simbi Akande, Angelica Allen, Kenneth Avery-Clark, Keiron Crook, James Gant, Danny Michaels, Janet Mooney, with Amy Mepham, Rebecca Nardin and Madeleine Sellman as Young Violet

Producers: Steven M Levy and Vaughan Williams for Charing Cross Theatre Productions Limited, in a co-production with Umeda Arts Theatre Co Ltd, Osaka, Japan

• Mainstage

Stiletto

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In Italy during the 18th century, an average of 5,000 boys were castrated annually. Almost exclusively, they came from poor families. Their treble voices intact, castration promised those who survived a chance to earn fame and fortune by singing female roles in the opera. A few made it, but most didn’t and were swept aside.

Stiletto, a new musical with Music and Lyrics by three-time Grammy nominee, Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Matthew Wilder (Disney’s Mulan), Book by double Olivier Award nominee Tim Luscombe (Noël Coward’s Easy Virtue, Terrence Rattigan’s The Browning Version and Harlequinade), is set in Venice, Europe’s opera capital.

During the winter of 1730-31, Venice is a city bristling with opportunity where fortunes can be made but life is cheap. A city of lustre and intrigue with plenty of chances of success for Marco, who was castrated as a child to retain his perfect voice. Opera stars being the rock stars of their day, Marco is on course to be an 18th-century Jagger or Bowie, to snag a powerful patron and play leading roles.

In a busy square he meets Gioia, confident, strong willed...and supremely talented. But despite her musical gifts, being the daughter of an African slave, there’s no chance for her to fulfil her dreams. Marco recognises her talent and, sensing that they are both outsiders as well as sharing a love for music, they fall in love.

In an attempt to get her on stage, Marco introduces Gioia to society and his patron, the Contessa Azzurra, but at the end of the evening, a body lies dead and Gioia is hauled off to prison. To free her, Marco must overcome the demons of his past and the morally corrupt forces of the present.

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Creatives:

Music & Lyrics: Matthew Wilder

Book: Tim Luscombe

Director: David Gilmore

Staging Consultant: Anthony Van Laast

Musical Director: Jae Alexander

Orchestrator: Simon Nathan

Set Designer: Ceci Calf

Costume Designer: Anna Kelsey

Lighting Designer: Ben Ormerod   

Sound Designer: Andrew Johnson

Casting: Neil Rutherford

Executive Producer: Guy Kitchenn

Produced by Patrick Bywalski for the Robert Stigwood Organisation and Steven M. Levy for Charing Cross Theatre Productions Limited.

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