Set your sights on Tinseltown! After a successful revival at the Donmar Warehouse in 2014, Josie Rourke’s critically acclaimed production of musical comedy City Of Angels returns to the West End, playing at the Garrick Theatre for a limited season from 5 March 2020.
Set in 1940s Hollywood, two stories are being told simultaneously – a screenwriter with a movie to finish and a private eye with a case to crack.
With one story told in black and white, most actors play a part in each tale in an impressive feat of staging and set design. The tale flits between two worlds. In the ‘real’ world, Stine is adapting his popular detective tale City of Angels for the screen. As he types and as drama unfolds in his own world, the fictional world he’s writing plays out on stage next to him, with more than one parallel between the two.
Reprising their original roles are Rosalie Craig (Company) as Gabby/Bobbi, Hadley Fraser (Les Misérables) as Stine and Rebecca Trehearn (Showboat) as Doona/Oolie.
They are joined by Emmy and Grammy Award nominee and all-round icon Vanessa Williams, who you’ll recognise as Wilhelmina Slater in Ugly Betty and Renee Perry in Desperate housewives. Taking the role of Carla/Alaura, this will be Vanessa’s West End Debut.
Featuring an inventive set, impossibly glamorous design and an original jazz score that will transport you straight back to 1940s Hollywood. This production sees the full original London creative team reunited after 5 years.
Hadley Fraser Stine in the original Donmar Warehouse Production of City of Angels. Photo by Johan Persson.
The original 1990 Broadway production was nominated for a whopping 11 Tony Awards, winning 6 including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score and Best Scenic Design. This City Of Angels London production was nominated for 5 Olivier Awards when it premiered back in 2015, winning Best Musical Revival and Best Lighting Design.
Josie Rourke, Director of City of Angels said:
“City of Angels was a landmark experience for me at the Donmar. We all longed to hear Cy Coleman’s classic score, and see this incredible design on a bigger stage. Nica’s passion for the show has brought about this reunion, and I’m very grateful that through her championing, audiences will have the chance to see this classic production in the West End.
In the five years since I directed the show, I’ve experienced making movies first-hand, and I will return to this Hollywood story with a little more insight! It is a joy to reunite with Rosalie, Hadley, and Rebecca (who made these characters their own), and to have the icon Vanessa Williams make her West End debut as femme fatale, Alaura, in the production.”
Nica Burns, Producer of City of Angels said:
“Only 17,500 people had the opportunity to see Josie Rourke’s outstandingly brilliant production of this terrific, multi-award-winning musical – the equivalent of only a month in a West End playhouse. It has taken 5 years to reunite the original creative team and finally give a wider audience the chance to see this sensationally sexy, musical masterpiece. A strictly limited season so don’t miss out a second time.”