Producers have announced the first casting news for the anticipated London transfer of Bartlett Sher’s multi award-winning Lincoln Center Theater production of Lerner & Loewe’s beloved musical, MY FAIR LADY, which will play a limited summer engagement at the London Coliseum from 7 May to 27 August 2022.
This will be the first major West End revival of the iconic show for 21 years.
The production will star Amara Okereke as Eliza Doolittle alongside Harry Hadden-Paton as Professor Henry Higgins, reprising his Tony and Grammy award nominated performance from the original Lincoln Center production in New York.
Dame Vanessa Redgrave will return to the West End stage for the first time since her appearance in The Inheritance in 2018 to play Mrs Higgins.
Joining her will be Maureen Beattie as Mrs Pearce and Sharif Afifi as Freddie Eynesford-Hill.
Further casting will be announced soon.
This sublime production, which premiered at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater in Spring 2018, was the winner of the Tony Award for Best Costume Design, 5 Outer Critics’ Circle Awards including Best Musical Revival, the Drama League Award for Outstanding Musical Revival, and the Drama Desk Awards for Best Musical Revival and Costume Design. The London production will feature the English National Opera’s award-winning Orchestra playing Frederick Loewe’s ravishing score.
Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, Lerner & Loewe’s MY FAIR LADY premiered on Broadway in March 1956, winning 6 Tony Awards including Best Musical, and becoming the longest-running musical in Broadway history at the time. Following this success, the production transferred to London in 1958, where it played in the West End for five and a half years.
With a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, MY FAIR LADY boasts a score including the classic songs “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “On the Street Where You Live,” “The Rain in Spain,” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”
James L. Nederlander, Jamie Wilson, Hunter Arnold, Playful Productions and the English National Opera present the Lincoln Center Theater production of Lerner & Loewe’s MY FAIR LADY at the London Coliseum, with sets by Michael Yeargan, costumes by Catherine Zuber, lighting by Donald Holder, sound by Marc Salzberg, hair & wigs by Tom Watson, musical direction by Gareth Valentine, musical supervision by Ted Sperling, choreography by Christopher Gattelli, original musical arrangements by Robert Russell Bennett and Phil Lang, and dance arrangements by Trude Rittmann.