Full Casting announced for Curve's new production of the award winning musical Hairspray
HAIRSPRAY
Book by Mark O’Donnell & Thomas Meeham
Music by Marc Shaiman
Lyrics by Scott Whittman & Marc Shaiman
Presented by arrangement with JOSEF WEINBERGER LIMITED
on behalf of MUSIC THEATRE INTERNATIONAL of New York
Based on the New Line Cinema film written and directed by JOHN WATERS
Director: Paul Kerryson; Musical Director: Ben Atkinson; Choreographer: Lee Proud
28 February – 5 April
Press night: 5 March at 7pm
Artistic Director Paul Kerryson today announces the full cast for Curve’s new production of Hairspray. Joining David Witts as Link Larkin are Michelle Andrews (Ensemble), Lucy Ashenden (Ensemble), John Barr (Wilbur Turnblad), Charlie Bull (Ensemble), Samara Casteallo (Little Inez), Joseph Connor (Ensemble), Rebecca Craven (Tracy Turnblad), Sophie-Louise Dann (Velma Von Tussle), Matt Gillet (Ensemble), Tyrone Huntley (Seaweed), Matt Jones (Ensemble), Cleopatra Joseph (Dynamite), Claudia Kariuki (Motormouth Maybelle), Jasmine Kerr (Dynamite), Sorelle Marsh (Female Authority Figure), Ryan Pidgen (Male Authority Figure), Zizi Strallen (Penny Pingleton), Vicki Lee Taylor (Amber Von Tussle), Callum Train (Corny Collins), Sharon Wattis (Dynamite) and Damian Williams (Edna Turnblad).
The production opens on 5 March 2014, with previews from 28 February, and running until 5 April.
Join Tracy Turnblad, a teenager with high hopes, big ambitions and even bigger hair as Curve present a brand new production of the Olivier Award-winning musical, Hairspray. This West End and Broadway smash hit is the ultimate feel good show.
Be transported back in time and sing Welcome to the 60’s as we follow the ambitious, bubbly and heart-warming Tracy Turnblad in her dream to be crowned Miss Teenage Hairspray. After winning a spot on a local TV dance programme, Tracy becomes an overnight sensation. But can she win over the heartthrob Link Larkin and oust the programme’s reigning teen princess?
Featuring hit songs Good Morning Baltimore, I Can Hear the Bells, It Takes Two, You Can’t Stop the Beat and many more.
John Barr’s theatre work includes A Class Act, Ragtime, Bent (Landor Theatre), Assassins (Union Theatre), Cats (Larnaca Festival, Cyprus), Chicago (Plenary Hall, Kuala Lumpur), Company (Derby Playhouse), The Merry Widow, The Mikado, Aspects of Love, Les Miserables, Sweeney Todd, Evita (Manchester Opera House), and Bat Boy The Musical (Shaftesbury Theatre). For film, his work includes Les Miserables and The Catch.
Rebecca Craven makes her professional musical debut with Hairspray. For television, her work includes Waterloo Road, Pobol Y Cwm, Y Pris & Caerdydd; and for film, Hunky Dory.
Zizi Strallen returns to Leicester where she recently appeared in Chicago. Other credits include Merrily We Roll Along (Menier Chocolate Factory and Harold Pinter Theatre), Rock of Ages (West End), Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella (Sadler’s Wells and World tour), Dirty Dancing (Aldwych), The Music Man (Chichester Festival Theatre), Scrooge (London Palladium), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (London Palladium), and The Herbal Bed (Royal Shakespeare Company. For television, her work includes The Prince and the Pauper, Bramwell, Victoria and Albert, and Dinotopia.
Damian Williams has featured in Sheffield Lyceum’s pantomime for four seasons, taking on the role of the Dame in Aladdin, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, as well as playing Mr Smee in Peter Pan. He has appeared on national tour in Being Tommy Cooper, See How They Run, Up Pompeii, Birthday Suite, Tom, Dick and Harry, ‘Allo ‘Allo, Little Voice, South Pacific, Relatively Speaking, Charley’s Aunt, Bouncers, Wind in the Willows, Educating Rita, God Spell and The Sound of Music. For television, his credits include Are You Smarter Than Your Ten Year Old, Tom & Jenny, Alfonso Bonzo, Billy Webb and Spatz.
David Witts trained with the National Youth Music Theatre and the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. He can currently be seen as Joey Branning in BBC’s EastEnders – a role for which he won Most Popular Newcomer at the National Television Awards in 2013, and Best Newcomer at the TV Choice Awards 2013.
Artistic Director of Curve, Paul Kerryson directs. For the company, his work includes Chicago, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Piaf, Hello Dolly!, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Buried Child, Gypsy, Absurd Person Singular, The Light in the Piazza, The King and I (also UK tour), 42nd Street, The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. For the Haymarket Theatre Leicester, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Playboy of the Western World, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Plough and the Stars, Dolly West’s Kitchen, Richard III, Breaking the Code, East, Edward II and Single Spies. Kerryson has directed works by the world’s greatest composers including Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kander and Ebb, Jerry Herman, William Finn, and has enjoyed a celebrated, close creative relationship with the works of Stephen Sondheim. He has directed for Chichester Festival Theatre, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Manchester Library Theatre and the Dublin Gaiety.