UK's Watermill SUNSET BOULEVARD Makes Move to West End 12/5

UK's WhatsOnStage.com is confirming the long expected news that Watermill Theatre's acclaimed revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard shall transfer to the West End's Comedy Theatre in December 2008. The production begins performances on December 5^th.

Based on Billy Wilder's 1950 Oscar-winning film of the same name, Sunset Boulevard depicts the faded glamour of the former Hollywood icon Norma Desmond, who's now living in isolation, with only memories for company. When struggling young screenwriter Joe Gillis appears at her crumbling mansion, she demands a second chance in the limelight.

Kathryn Evans and Ben Goddard will reprise their roles as Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis, with former West End Phantom and Valjean, Dave Willetts joining the cast as Desmond servant, Max von Meyerling.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical was last seen in the West End, in a much bigger production, at the Adelphi Theatre, where it premiered in July 1993, with Patti LuPone starring as Norma Desmond, closed in March 1994 for rewrites and reopened five weeks later in a revised version that ran for another three years, explains WhatsOnStage.

The new small-scale production of Sunset Boulevard, which had a sell-out season at the Watermill in Newbury this summer, is directed and choreographed by Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood. Musical arrangements are by Sarah Travis, who also collaborated with John Doyle on previous Watermill actor-musician productions of Mack and Mabel, Gondoliers and Sweeney Todd, all of which had West End runs. The last also transferred to Broadway, where Travis became the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Orchestration (in 2006).

Photo Credit: Robert Day

 

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