"Kiss Me, Kate" - 14th - 18th May 2024
Last performed by WWAOS in 2007, this toe tapping musical was Cole Porter's response to Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! and other integrated musicals. It was the first show he wrote in which the music and lyrics were firmly connected to the script. The musical premiered in 1948 and proved to be Porter's only show to run for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway. In 1949, it won the first Tony Award for Best Musical. Multiple subsequent revivals have been mounted both on Broadway and in the West End to great success, proving Kiss Me, Kate is a true fan favourite that is loved by generation after generation.
The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. A secondary romance concerns Lois Lane, the actress playing Bianca, and her gambler boyfriend, Bill, who runs afoul of some gangsters. The musical was inspired by the on-stage/off-stage battling of husband-and-wife actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne during their 1935 production of The Taming of the Shrew, witnessed by future Broadway producer Arnold Saint-Subber. In 1947, he asked the Spewacks (undergoing their own marital woes at the time) to write the script; Bella Spewack in turn enlisted Cole Porter to write the music and lyrics.
Director: Ellie Parsons, Musical Director: Mark Turvill, Choreographer: Claire Leonard
Key Dates:
Intro: Thursday 1st February, 8pm
Auditions: Sunday 11th February, 2pm
Tech: Sunday 12th May
Dress: Monday 13th May
Performances: Tuesday 14th - Saturday 18th May inc. Matinée
The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. A secondary romance concerns Lois Lane, the actress playing Bianca, and her gambler boyfriend, Bill, who runs afoul of some gangsters. The musical was inspired by the on-stage/off-stage battling of husband-and-wife actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne during their 1935 production of The Taming of the Shrew, witnessed by future Broadway producer Arnold Saint-Subber. In 1947, he asked the Spewacks (undergoing their own marital woes at the time) to write the script; Bella Spewack in turn enlisted Cole Porter to write the music and lyrics.
Director: Ellie Parsons, Musical Director: Mark Turvill, Choreographer: Claire Leonard
Key Dates:
Intro: Thursday 1st February, 8pm
Auditions: Sunday 11th February, 2pm
Tech: Sunday 12th May
Dress: Monday 13th May
Performances: Tuesday 14th - Saturday 18th May inc. Matinée
"Fundraising Cabaret" - 7th September 2024
Our hugely popular annual Fundraising Cabaret Evenings - offering a chance to see our members showcase their many different talents in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere.
Further details to follow.
Creative Team: Claire, Leonard, Ellie Parsons & Johnathan Payne
Further details to follow.
Creative Team: Claire, Leonard, Ellie Parsons & Johnathan Payne
"Kipps, The New Half A Sixpence Musical" - 3rd - 7th December 2024
Arthur Kipps, an orphan, is an over-worked draper’s assistant at Shalford’s Bazaar, Folkestone, at the turn of the last century. He is a charming but ordinary young man who, along with his fellow apprentices, dreams of a better and more fulfilling world, but he likes his fun just like any other, except not quite. When Kipps unexpectedly inherits a fortune that propels him into high society, it confuses everything he thought he knew about life.
This new stage version of Half A Sixpence, which returns to the H. G. Wells semi-autobiographical novel, “Kipps”, in order to reinvent the musical “Half a Sixpence” for the modern age, has a stellar creative team and reunites bookwriter Julian Fellowes with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, the musical team that co-creator Cameron Mackintosh first put together to create the smash-hit stage adaptation of Mary Poppins with Disney. Julian Fellowes’ masterful adaptation returns the musical to its literary roots, in a timeless and contemporary way, and Stiles and Drewe’s brilliantly infectious new score harnesses the David Heneker classics with a joyous verve.
Director & Choreographer: Samantha Finch, Musical Director: TBC
Key Dates:
Intro: Tuesday 3rd September, 8pm
Auditions: Sunday 15th September, 2pm
Tech: Sunday 1st December
Dress: Monday 2nd December
Performances: Tuesday 3rd - Saturday 7th December inc. Matinée
This new stage version of Half A Sixpence, which returns to the H. G. Wells semi-autobiographical novel, “Kipps”, in order to reinvent the musical “Half a Sixpence” for the modern age, has a stellar creative team and reunites bookwriter Julian Fellowes with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, the musical team that co-creator Cameron Mackintosh first put together to create the smash-hit stage adaptation of Mary Poppins with Disney. Julian Fellowes’ masterful adaptation returns the musical to its literary roots, in a timeless and contemporary way, and Stiles and Drewe’s brilliantly infectious new score harnesses the David Heneker classics with a joyous verve.
Director & Choreographer: Samantha Finch, Musical Director: TBC
Key Dates:
Intro: Tuesday 3rd September, 8pm
Auditions: Sunday 15th September, 2pm
Tech: Sunday 1st December
Dress: Monday 2nd December
Performances: Tuesday 3rd - Saturday 7th December inc. Matinée
"The Mikado - Centenary Celebration Production" - 10th - 14th June 2025
As WWAOS enters its 100th year, the society is paying homage to its past, by revisiting the first ever production mounted by the society at its life-long home The Cecil Hepworth Playhouse. With it's inaugural production taking place in the same venue which still houses our performances and with the very person whose name the building now bears waving the baton it is only fitting that WWAOS's Centenary Celebration production be The Mikado; last mounted by the society for it's 75th Anniversary.
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is the ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations between W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. The Mikado is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. A satire of late 19th century British institutions, society and politics, which by setting in a fantasy Japan, an exotic locale far away from contemporary Britain, Gilbert was able to satirise British politics more freely and soften the impact of his criticisms of British social institutions, in a similar way that he used other "foreign" settings in Princess Ida, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke.
Director & Choreographer: James Palmer, Musical Director: Richard Stockton
Key Dates:
Intro: Thursday 20th February, 8pm
Auditions: Sunday 2nd March, 2pm
Tech: Sunday 8th June
Dress: Monday 9th June
Performances: Tuesday 10th - Saturday 14th June inc. Matinée
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is the ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations between W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. The Mikado is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. A satire of late 19th century British institutions, society and politics, which by setting in a fantasy Japan, an exotic locale far away from contemporary Britain, Gilbert was able to satirise British politics more freely and soften the impact of his criticisms of British social institutions, in a similar way that he used other "foreign" settings in Princess Ida, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke.
Director & Choreographer: James Palmer, Musical Director: Richard Stockton
Key Dates:
Intro: Thursday 20th February, 8pm
Auditions: Sunday 2nd March, 2pm
Tech: Sunday 8th June
Dress: Monday 9th June
Performances: Tuesday 10th - Saturday 14th June inc. Matinée