FROM BROADWAY TO WEST END

​Saturday 14th May 2022 – 7:00pm

THE PROGRAMME:

Highlights from “Wicked” ​- by Schwartz arr. Ricketts

Selections from "Les Miserables" - Schonberg arr. Bob Lowden

Overture from "The Pirates of Penzance" - by Sullivan 

"Jesus Christ Superstar" - by Lloyd Webber arr. Henry Mancini

Music from "Evita" - by Lloyd Webber arr. Tim Rice

"Miss Saigon" - by Schonberg arr. Custer

Selections from "West Side Story" - by Bernstein

LEARN MORE ABOUT SOME OF THE MUSIC!

Les Misérables (popularly known as Les Mis) is a musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel of the same name, written by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil.

Set in early 19th-century France, Les Misérables is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his desire for redemption, released in 1815 after serving nineteen years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a bishop inspires him with a tremendous act of mercy, but a police inspector named Javert refuses to let him escape justice and pursues him for most of the play. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists attempt to overthrow the government at a street barricade in Paris.

​The original French musical premiered in Paris in 1980, with Cameron Mackintosh’s English-language adaptation later premiering in London in October 1985, marking Les Mis as one of the longest-running musicals in the West End the world.
Wicked is a musical adaptation of the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.

The musical is told from the perspective of, and focuses on, the witches of the Land of Oz, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Glinda (the Good Witch), and explores their relationship struggles through opposing personalities and viewpoints, rivalry over the same love-interest, reactions to the Wizard's corrupt government, and, ultimately, Elphaba's private fall from grace.

​The original production of Wicked premiered on Broadway at the Gershwin Theatre in October 2003 starring Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda, winning three Tony Awards and seven Drama Desk Awards.