VIOLET Will Make its UK Premiere at Charing Cross

VIOLET, a multi award-winning musical with Music by Jeanine Tesori (Tony Award winner for Best Original Score with Lisa Kron for Fun Home, and Tony-nominated for Caroline, or Change and Shrek the Musical), and Book & Lyrics by Brian Crawley (The Little Princess), is to get its UK premiere in an international co-production that will see it transfer to Tokyo.

VIOLET will gets its UK premiere at Charing Cross Theatre (Thom Southerland, Artistic Director, Steven M. Levy, Managing Director) for a 12-week season from Monday 14 January - Saturday 6 April, 2019.

Press night is Monday 21 January at 7.30pm.

Announcing the co-production, Thom Southerland said: I am delighted to welcome director Shuntaro Fujita and our producing partners Umeda Arts Theater for this exciting production. For four years it has been my privilege to create shows with Umeda Arts Theater in Japan and I am pleased that VIOLET is the first of our collaborations in the UK. Building on our in-house musical productions of Ragtime, Titanic, Death Takes A Holiday and The Woman in White, I am thrilled that Jeannie Tseori and Brian Crawley's urgent, exciting and extraordinary musical will find its premiere at Charing Cross Theatre. Umeda Arts Theater have been creating world class, international theatre in both Japan and on Broadway and I am delighted they have joined us at Charing Cross Theatre for a production which will transfer to Tokyo after its initial London run. This collaboration marks the beginning of an exchange of both work and artists between Charing Cross Theatre and Umeda Arts and we will soonannounce further projects including the development of new work and further UK premieres. VIOLET is an important production at Charing Cross Theatre celebrating our commitment to the creation of exemplary work from a range of International Artists."

1964. Somewhere between North Carolina and Oklahoma, we find Violet, a young woman who was facially disfigured as a child. She hopes her life savings will bring her a miracle halfway across the country. Reflecting on her childhood, and shaped by the reactions of the people she encounters, Violet embarks on a life-changing personal journey.

VIOLET, based on the short story The Ugliest Pilgrim by Doris Betts, premiered Off-Broadway and won the Drama Critics' Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award as Best Musical, before transferring to Broadway where it was nominated for four Tony awards.

Cast to be announced.

Creative team: Directed by Shuntaro Fujita, Choreography by Cressida Carré, Set Design by Morgan Large, Costume by Jonathan Lipman, Lighting by Howard Hudson, Sound by Andrew Johnson, Music Director Dan Jackson, Associate Music Director Chris Ma. Associate Director Abigail Pickard-Price Production Supervisior Thom Southerland.

Producers: Steven M. Levy and Vaughan Williams for Charing Cross Theatre Productions Limited in a co-production with Umeda Arts Theater Co, Ltd., Osaka, Japan