Cast - including Karis Jack and Sophia Mackay as young and old Viveca, the title character - have been announced for the London premiere production of award-winning Off-Broadway musical THE BUBBLY BLACK GIRL SHEDS HER CHAMELEON SKIN, which opens at Theatre Royal Stratford East in February.

Producer Paul Taylor Mills and director Luke J Sheppard reunite for the first time since their Olivier Award-winning success with In the Heights for the British premiere of MURDER FOR TWO, which is the inaugural production in the soon-to-be-renamed The Other Palace Studio (currently the St James Studio)...

It's sad when a headliner has to withdraw from a show, as Ciara Renee has done with LIZZIE due to a scheduling conflict. But when the fallback is a mega Broadway star like Eden Espinosa, there's reason to celebrate too. She'll now join the quartet of #StageFaves in the UK premiere of the axe-wielding Lizzie Borden musical in February...

After Titanic and Ragtime, Thom Southerland and Danielle Tarento's Charing Cross Theatre season of musicals continues in January with DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY. Today, the full cast - led by Maxwell Caulfield, Zoe Doano and Chris Peluso - is announced...

Was THE SORROWS OF SATAN the 50 Shades of Grey of its day? Marie Corelli's original novel is regarded as one of the world's first modern bestsellers and caused controversy when it was first published in 1895 (it was one of Oscar Wilde's fave reads, dontcha know). Now it gets musical treatment care of British writers Bateman & Conley...

What's been your favourite musical theatre album this year? Make sure it - and the #StageFaves talent behind it - gets the recognition it deserves. The Curtain Up Show, on Resonance FM, is running its Album of the Year prize for a second year in a row, now with three categories and all decided by public vote. Nominees announced this Friday at 4pm...

Play versions of A CHRISTMAS CAROL are a festive staple. This year, London theatregoers also have two opportunities to see Alan Menken and Lynn Ahrens' Broadway musical version of Charles Dickens' classic story. London Musical Theatre Orchestra mounts a stellar concert presentation led by Robert Lindsay in the West End, while Wandsworth's LOST Theatre presents a full Off-West End production over the Christmas fortnight itself...

Talk about Rolls Royce casting. After Sweeney Todd with Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson and this year's Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close, English National Opera and producers Grade Linnit continue their annual mega musical classic revival at the London Coliseum next spring with Katherine Jenkins and Alfie Boe in Rodgers and Hammerstein's CAROUSEL...

Newcomer Charlie Stemp is now officially a West End star after rave reviews for the London transfer of HALF A SIXPENCE this past week. And the show - reworked by Cameron Mackintosh, book writer Julian Fellowes, and Stiles and Drewe - is officially a mega hit, with booking now extended at the Noel Coward Theatre until April...

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO ... you know it! And so did Neil Sedaka. The musical of the same name, featuring other top easy-listening tunes by Sedaka, will get its London premiere in the new year....

Rock on and on and on. After reviews like it got this week, it's no surprise that Andrew Lloyd Webber has extended West End booking for SCHOOL OF ROCK at the New London theatre...

Another reason to visit Regent's Park next summer. Not only will artistic director Timothy Sheader's Evening Standard Award-winning revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar return; the Open Air is also mounting its bigger-ever dance musical, Broadway classic ON THE TOWN, directed and choreographed by hotter-than-hot Drew McOnie...

Broadway musical THE ADDAMS FAMILY gets its UK & Irish premiere next year and initial casting has just been announced. Samantha Womack, Carrie Hope Fletcher and Les Dennis have joined the family as Morticia, Wednesday and Uncle Fester. But which of your #StageFaves will get to be Gomez?! And will the show transfer....?

Cheeky! ADAM & EVE... AND STEVE The American musical farce' which gives the Garden of Eden story a modern (three-way) twist, receives its London premiere at the King's Head Theatre in March, after success at this year's Edinburgh Festival...

Did Lizzie Borden wield the axe or not? It's an international four-strong cast of strong women for the UK premiere of rock musical LIZZIE, including Broadway Ciara Renee and the West End's Jodie Jacobs. Chop, chop...

What would the Village People make of Stephen Schwartz's WORKING? The genre-breaking 1978 Broadway musical - based on interviews with a cross-section of the American workforce and featuring songs from Grammy winner James Taylor and, more recently added, Lin-Manuel Miranda - gets its European premiere at Southwark Playhouse next June...

In its new POWER season of politically charged productions for spring 2017, the Donmar Warehouse will premiere a new musical based on the 2015 collapse of controversial charity KIDS COMPANY and its 'relationship with Whitehall'. Who's accountable when something goes wrong? Consider the evidence...

Say a Little Prayer for Gabriel Vick, Daisy Maywood and Paul Robinson - or have their prayers already been answered? They get their hands on that and other classic songs from Burt Bacharach's catalogue as they lead the cast of PROMISES, PROMISES. The first London production in 20 years of the Broadway musical Bacharach wrote with Hal David and Neil Simon, based on the Billy Wilder film The Apartment, comes to Southwark Playhouse in the new year...

Final casting has now been announced for NEW SONGS 4 NEW SHOWS, which runs for one night only at the West End’s Lyric Theatre on Monday 28 November. Olivier Award winner Sally Dexter and Clive Carter, both Wicked West End alumni, and rising star Katie Bernstein (Allegro, Mrs Henderson Presents, Urinetown) join the previously announced members of the line-up below...

Yippee! Another Stiles & Drewe musical confirmed for the West End. Following this month's transfer of Half a Sixpence (which also has a book by Julian Fellowes), THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS opens next June at the London Palladium, where Rufus Hound will reprise his performance as Toad, with further West End casting to be announced...