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Check here for the latest musical news with links to all your #StageFaves performers, shows and theatres. Also look out for our regular #GetSocial features and contributions from our syndicate media partners including MyTheatreMates.com and the Musical Theatre Appreciation Society.
'Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning': Peter Pan Live! is next up on The Shows Must Go On YouTube channel this Friday. How well do you know the Broadway musical? Watch the trailer, and a wickedly funny Saturday Night Live's send-up, here...
2020
Do you want to see the first live performances – with a live band – in a theatre since the West End and Off-West End closed in mid-March? Then tune in from tonight (12 June 2020) to see what’s been happening at the Union Theatre this month in lockdown.
When can we all get back to our fave shows? The most recent statement from the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) – on behalf of the major commercial West End theatre operators – confirms that theatres will remain closed until at least August.
Ease on down the road: Way before Wicked, The Wiz reinvented children's classic on Broadway. The star-studded live American telecast of the soul and R&B take is the next free-to-view stream on The Shows Must Go On YouTube channel. Watch the trailer here.
2020
Jason Robert Brown's ever-popular song cycle The Last Five Years gets a new 'virtual lockdown production' this month, starring Lauren Samuels and Danny Becker. Pre-sale begins today (4 June 2020), with tickets on general sale from midday tomorrow...
Are you already humming Any Dream Will Do in anticipation? You'll have to wait a year longer but Jac Yarrow will reprise his acclaimed performance in Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, alongside Jason Donovan, at the London Palladium next summer.
Imelda Staunton won't be back where she belongs - the theatre, that is - quite when we expected. HELLO, DOLLY! is the latest West End postponement in the face of the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
Oh how we do wish they were somehow here again... Killian Donnelly and Holly-Anne Hull only had 13 performances as the Phantom and Christine, and sadly they won't get any more as the remainder of the 14-month UK and Ireland tour of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA has now been cancelled.
2020
As part of the city-wide sourced Bristol Arts Channel on YouTube, Bristol Old Vic will screen its acclaimed macabre musical THE GRINNING MAN, free to view for one week from 7pm on Friday 26 June 2020. Watch the trailer for this 'bootleg capture' here...
Bring It On The Musical, starring Amber Davies and Olympian Louis Smith, was meant to spend Christmas at London's Southbank Centre as part of a UK-wide tour. It has now been postponed until 2021, along with four other Selladoor musicals.
You can't stop the beat! Ahead of the London stage revival starring Michael Ball, due at the London Coliseum later this year (fingers crossed), you can catch Hairspray Live! on lockdown musicals channel The Shows Must Go On this weekend...
We were worried after Andrew Lloyd Webber signed off, but The Shows Must Go On free musical theatre lockdown viewing will continue on YouTube. Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music is next up. Watch the trailer, plus Lloyd Webber's reflection on the series, here...
Something to look forward to during theatre lockdown: WEST END LIVE is going virtual next month. Which musicals would you most like to see showcased?
After ten weeks, 72 virtual shows and over £30,000 raised for musical theatre performers during lockdown, the hugely successful #LeaveALightOn online concert series will come to a close next Friday 26 May 2020 with Beverley Knight.
2020
Craig Revel Horwood's new production of Baz Luhrmann's STRICTLY BALLROOM only announced its big-name star, Strictly Come Dancing's Kevin Clifton, in mid-March, just as theatres were locking down. It's now postponed its tour, which was due to launch in late September, by a full year...
The Open Air Theatre has announced its third musical cancellation this year. Carousel follows news about 101 Dalmatians and its transfer of Evita to the Barbican, along with the postponement of its entire summer season until 2021.
Never mind the panned 2019 big-screen release. True feline fans know that the 1998 recording of CATS, featuring Elaine Paige reprising her role as Grizabella, is where's it's really at. And it's next up on Andrew Lloyd Webber's free lockdown line-up - though only for 24 hours.
When will be able to see our fave West End musicals again? The rolling cancellations continue as the National Theatre artistic director Rufus Norris and Nimax Theatres' owner Nica Burns warn that many theatres may not survive...
How gutted are you? As the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) confirms that all West End performances are now cancelled until at least 28 June 2020, the Broadway transfer of Sondheim's SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, due to run 11 June to 5 September 2020 at the Savoy Theatre, has postponed its season until some point in 2021.
It was last in the West End more than twenty years ago so this may be the first opportunity for many to see Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn's sole collaboration. Their musical comedy BY JEEVES, inspired by PG Wodehouse's classic Jeeves and Wooster stories, streams for 48 hours for free on YouTube from this Friday 8 May 2020. Watch two of the show's songs here...