Tom Atkins

A brand new cast recording of the 2006 revival of Kander and Ebb's musical, Cabaret, featuring the Lyric Theatre, London cast has been released. It is available to purchase at the theatre, and online through the shop at the musical's official website.

The 2006 New End Theatre Cast Recording of the new British musical, Tomorrow Morning, has finally been released this month after many delays, under the Dress Circle record label - the original release date had been scheduled for early December 2006. The recording is presented over fifteen tracks, and comes with a special extra bonus DVD featuring footage from the show, recording and interviews with the cast and creatives. A West End production of Tomorrow Morning is to be mounted towards the end of this year.

Mel Brooks's The Producers closes at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane after playing its final performance on 6th January, after its run of more than two years. Performances at the London venue began back in October 2004, with the production winning the 2005 Laurence Olivier awards for Best New Musical and Best Actor in a Musical (Nathan Lane) along with nominations for Best Actress in a Musical (Leigh Zimmerman), Best Actor in a Musical (Lee Evans), Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical (Conleth Hill), Best Director (Susan Stroman) and Best Theatre Choreographer (Susan Stroman).

It has been announced that the West End productions of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks and Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll will close within the next two months.

For the third year running, the Greenwich Theatre presents the groundbreaking 'The Ten Minute Musical Challenge'. Originally devised by Ellie Jones in 2005, this year's challenge will be directed by Fiona Laird. The challenge is designed to bring together composers, bookwriters and lyricists who have not worked together before, to forge new collaborations and encourage these creative teams to work fast enough to produce a ten minute musical in just one day, from the stimulus of stories in that day's newspaper.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, who recently announced plans to launch a new reality TV style casting search for his upcoming London production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, has warned that the future of musicals is under threat from new plans to sell the frequencies of wireless microphones used on stage in nearly all West End theatres, to communications companies.

After several long campaigns to stall or halt the decision, London's Theatre Museum in Covent Garden will unfortunately close its doors on Sunday 7th January. But it will continue its education and outreach work until August 2007.

Postcards From God - the Sister Wendy Musical, will open at the Jermyn Street Theatre on January 8th with performances running for four weeks only through to February 3rd. Produced by the Okai Collier Company, the production will star Andrea Miller as Mother Ruth/Penelope, Juliet Gough as Daniel/Brandy LeBrun, Catherine Millsom as Coz, Louise Hollamby as Sister Amelia and the West End veteran Myra Sands as Sister Wendy.

Idina Menzel gave her final performance as the unusually green witch, Elphaba, in the London production of the hit musical Wicked on the 30th December at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. Her three-month contract, which paid a record-breaking $30,000 per week, is now over and Kerry Ellis takes over the role from 1st January 2007.

The new National Theatre of Scotland, which produced its first production in February 2006, will be heading in to England for the staging of two of its productions in London - Anthony Neilson's The Wonderful World Of Dissocia and Pol Heyvaert's Aalst (a new version by Duncan McLean). This means that there will be a total of two National Theatre companies playing London in Spring 2007, with England's own National Theatre already well-established on the South Bank.

Actors and directors have been recognised in The Queen's New Year's Honours List for 2007, with some well-known names being rewarded for their services to the industry.

The London production of Avenue Q at the Noël Coward Theatre (formely the Albery Theatre) has scheduled a 'Midnight Matinee' for Monday 22nd January 2007. The performance will be a special event to raise funds for TheatreCares, the proceeds of which will be invaluable to people affected by HIV and AIDS. Beginning at 11:30pm, long after all of the other West End theatres have locked up for the night, the performance will run through midnight into the early hours of Tuesday morning.