Jon Bausor News

On 21 October 1994, Frantic Assembly performed their first ever work a?" a production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger performed by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett at the Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea. To mark the anniversary of their first performance, the company today announced a new fundraising initiative and revealed further details of projects forming a year of activity to celebrate 25 years of Frantic Assembly.

The extraordinary success of Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman's Ghost Stories back at the Lyric Hammersmith in 2010 led to multiple runs in London, a film starring Martin Freeman, Paul Whitehouse, and Alex Lawter, and a number of tours and productions all over the world. It's easy to see how the piece achieved all that. The 80-minute straight-through show is filled to the brim with scrumptious spookiness. Directors Dyson, Nyman, and Sean Holmes start playing with their public from the outset of their experience, restricting the information on plot and presentation to a minimum on marketing material and website, daring them to book if they dare.

'They're out of control,' an exasperated Bradley Dean cries out in a plea of victimization. 'Can you believe they tried to destroy my new housing project?' And from there you can pretty much predict where the plot of Jim Steinman's wildly oddball and frequently hilarious Bat Out of Hell is going.

The Menier Chocolate Factory presents the UK premiere of the musical of Robert James Waller's bestselling novel The Bridges of Madison County in a new staging by Trevor Nunn. The production opened last night 23 July, and runs until 14 September. What did the critics think?

While the beginning of a heatwave raged outside the Menier Chocolate Factory, attendees of the UK premiere production of The Bridges of Madison County, directed by Trevor Nunn, were transported to a hot summer of a different kind in Iowa in the 1960s.

Bat Out Of Hell - The Musical announced today that the Tony Award winning actor, Grammy Nominee, singer/songwriter, Lena Hall, will star as 'Sloane,' completing the cast of the critically acclaimed, thrilling new musical based on one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Young Vic Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah has announced the Programme for 2020.

The New York City run for Jim Steinman's Bat Out Of Hell - The Musical will begin performances at New York City Center on August 1, 2019 with an Opening Night set for August 8, 2019. Bat Out Of Hell - The Musical will play a six-week engagement through September 8, 2019.

The Linbury Prize is the UK's most prestigious award for Stage Design, providing a unique opportunity for graduating designers to work with some of the UK's leading theatre, opera and dance companies. This year the members of the judging panel are designers Lizzie Clachan (Absolute Hell, As You Like It), Katrina Lindsay (Small Island, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and Rajha Shakiry (Nine Night, Misty); the finalists will be designing for Birmingham Royal Ballet, Leeds Playhouse, Nuffield Southampton Theatres and Octagon Theatre Bolton.

This week however, the run was canceled at both the Ordway in St. Paul and the National in Washington, DC (no announcement yet by Dallas) with the DC venue's web site noting...

When Sam Shepard's play True West made its New York debut back in 1980 it was something of a flop - since then, however, it has been recognised as an insightful piece of theatre, with the likes of John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C Reilly taking on the roles of Lee and Austin at one point or another in their careers. It's taken until now for the play to have its UK premiere; Matthew Dunster's production at the Vaudeville Theatre is as much a way to celebrate Shepard's career (who died last year) as it is to make a point about our ongoing need to label people as certain things.

Kit Harington - renowned for his leading role in the internationally acclaimed series Game of Thrones - and Johnny Flynn - star of the widely celebrated film Beast and US TV series Genius, star in Sam Shepard's ferociously funny, modern classic, True West, the first UK production of Shepard's work since his death last summer.

A show representative tells us that the tour will be postponed until 2019. 'The tour will now launch in 2019 with stops in St. Paul, Dallas, and Washington D.C. ahead of the previously announced run at New York City Center which will begin performances, as previously announced, on Tuesday, July 30,' says a rep. 'The production is working with everyone involved to reschedule and news about the North American tour will be announced soon.'

Just days after announcing a run of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical in New York City at City Center, which would come on the heels of its national tour, BWW has learned that the tour has been canceled. 

The producers have announced Jim Steinman's Bat Out Of Hell – The Musical, the critically acclaimed, thrilling new musical based on one of the best-selling albums of all time, will play an eight-week engagement at New York City Center (131 West 55th Street) as part of its North American tour, which is currently at Toronto's Ed Mirvish Theatre and officially launches next week at Detroit's Fox Theatre.

A special Gala Charity event for Tim Firth's award-winning new musical THE BAND, with the music of Take That, is being hosted by the musical's co-producers, Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen and Robbie Williams, with David Furnish, Chairman of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. The Gala will take place at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on Tuesday 4 December 2018.

The West End season of the award-winning Bat Out Of Hell - The Musical must end at the Dominion Theatre on Saturday 5 January 2019.

In April 2018, hit West End show, Bat Out Of Hell - The Musical, announced a wide-ranging global partnership with the Invictus Games Foundation, the governing body of the Invictus Games. The producers are now delighted to be able to announce a special Gala Performance of the musical in support of the Invictus Games Foundation on Thursday 6 December 2018.

Christina Bennington, currently starring as Raven in Bat Out Of Hell, performed at Crazy Coqs' New Musical Theatre Showcase recently.

Madeleine Potter and Donald Sage Mackay complete the cast for the forthcoming West End Premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winner Sam Shepard's ferociously funny, modern classic, True West. They will join the previously announced Kit Harington - renowned for his leading role in the internationally acclaimed series Game of Thrones - and Johnny Flynn - star of the widely celebrated film Beast and US TV series Genius, and who received rave reviews for his performance in the New York transfer of Hangmen, in the first UK production of Shepard's work since his death last summer. True West will play a limited season at the Vaudeville Theatre from Friday 23 November - Saturday 16 February (Press Night: Tuesday 4 December at 7:00pm).