Maltby and Shire Show Will Take Off at the Menier

Following its staging of the UK premieres of musicals "Tick, Tick Boom" in 2005 and "The Last Five Years" in 2006, the Menier Chocolate Factory will go one better this summer by staging the World Premiere of the new Maltby and Shire musical, "Take Flight" from July 25 to September 22 (previewing from July 13). The Menier will hope to repeat the success of its other 2005 musical production, "Sunday In the Park With George", as "Take Flight" reunites the artistic team that presented the award winning Sondheim revival - director Sam Buntrock and designer David Farley.  

"Take Flight" is a musical collage that tells the stories of some of the early pioneers of aeronautics - the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart - with music by David Shire and Lyrics by Richard Maltby, the team that has previously collaborated on Broadway musicals "Baby" and "Big" as well as the hit musical revues, "Starting Here, Starting Now" and "Closer Than Ever". Shire is also a renowned composer of film scores, while Maltby conceived and directed the smash hit "Ain't Misbehaving", directed and adapted Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Song and Dance" for Broadway and wrote the English lyrics for "Miss Saigon". The song writing duo's librettist for the musical "Big" - John Weidman - also provides the Book for this new show. Weidman, the son of Jerome Weidman (librettist of the Pulitzer Prize winning musical "Fiorello"), also penned the librettos for the Sondheim musicals "Pacific Overtures", "Assassins" and "Bounce" as well as "Anything Goes" and the Tony Award winning dance musical, "Contact".  

Casting has not yet been announced for this show, which is set to be one of the highlights of London's musical theatre summer.