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Gareth Valentine
Gareth Valentine (born 22 November 1956) is a Welsh composer, arranger, conductor and musical director. He has worked extensively in London's West End on musical productions and also conducted orchestras worldwide including the BBC Concert Orchestra, Welsh National Opera Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Pasdeloup orchestra, RPO Concert Orchestra, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, ENB Sinfonia, Orchestre de chambre de Paris and many others. After graduating from the Royal College of Music, London, he studied with Sir Peter Pears at Aldeburgh. Early life A native of Cefn Mawr, Valentine was educated at Ysgol Rhiwabon, Ruabon, Wrexham, Wales. He then graduated from the Royal College of Music, London, and later studied with Sir Peter Pears at the ''Advanced School of Singing and Strings'' Aldeburgh. Professional career Valentine was composer and music supervisor for ''Aladdin'', the pantomime, at the Old Vic starring Ian McKellen and Roger Allam. His "Requiem" has been performed wor ...
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West End Theatre
West End theatre is mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in and near the West End of London.Christopher Innes, "West End" in ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1194–1195, Along with New York City's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in London. Famous screen actors, British and international alike, frequently appear on the London stage. There are a total of 39 theatres in the West End, with the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opened in May 1663, the oldest theatre in London. The Savoy Theatre – built as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan – was entirely lit by electricity in 1881. Opening in October 2022, @sohoplace is the first new West End theatre in 50 years. The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) announced ...
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Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in the United Kingdom. At the time, the only other channels were the television licence, licence-funded BBC One and BBC Two, and a single commercial broadcasting network ITV (TV network), ITV. The network's headquarters are based in London and Leeds, with creative hubs in Glasgow and Bristol. It is publicly owned and advertising-funded; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public corporation of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which was established in 1990 and came into operation in 1993. Until 2010, Channel 4 did not broadcast in Wales, but many of its programmes were re-broadcast ...
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Oliver!
''Oliver!'' is a coming-of-age stage musical, with book, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the 1838 novel '' Oliver Twist'' by Charles Dickens. It premiered at the Wimbledon Theatre, southwest London in 1960 before opening in the West End, where it enjoyed a record-breaking long run. ''Oliver!'' ran on Broadway, after being brought to the U.S. by producer David Merrick in 1963. Major London revivals played from 1977–1980, 1994–1998, 2008–2011 and on tour in the UK from 2011–2013. Additionally, its 1968 film adaptation, directed by Carol Reed, won six Academy Awards including Best Picture. ''Oliver!'' received thousands of performances in British schools, becoming one of the most popular school musicals. In 1963 Lionel Bart received the Tony Award for Best Original Score. Many songs are well known to the public, such as "Food, Glorious Food", "Consider Yourself" and " I'd Do Anything". ''Oliver!'' was one of eight UK musicals featured on Roy ...
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42nd Street (musical)
''42nd Street'' is a 1980 stage musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin and Johnny Mercer and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production won the Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Choreography and it became a long-running hit. The show was also produced in London in 1984 (winning the Olivier Award for Best Musical) and its 2001 Broadway revival won the Tony Award for Best Revival. Based on the 1932 novel by Bradford Ropes and the subsequent 1933 Hollywood film adaptation, the backstage musical show that follows the rehearsal process of a broadway show being put on during the height of the great depression. The show is a jukebox musical of sorts, in that, in addition to songs from the 1933 film ''42nd Street'', it includes songs that Dubin and Warren wrote for many other films at around the same time, including ''Gold Diggers of 1933'', ''Roman Scandals'', ''Dames'', ''Gold Diggers of 1935'', ''Go into Your Dance,'' ''Gold Digge ...
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Oh Kay!
''Oh, Kay!'' is a musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. It is based on the play ''La Présidente'' by Maurice Hennequin and Pierre Veber. The plot revolves around the adventures of the Duke of Durham and his sister, Lady Kay, English bootleggers in Prohibition Era America. Kay finds herself falling in love with a man who seems unavailable. The show is remembered for its enduring song, " Someone to Watch Over Me". The musical opened on Broadway in 1926, starring Gertrude Lawrence and Victor Moore, and ran for 256 performances. The musical then opened in London's West End in 1927, starring Lawrence and John Kirby, where it ran for 213 performances. Background Producers Alex A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley imagined ''Oh, Kay!'' as a Princess Theatre-style show, with a contemporary setting, simple sets, and a farcical story. Gertrude Lawrence, who had been featured in the André Charlot revues of 1924 and 1925, ...
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My One And Only (musical)
''My One and Only'' is a musical with a book by Peter Stone and Timothy S. Mayer and music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin. The musical ran on Broadway and West End. Plot overview Written to incorporate classic Gershwin tunes from ''Funny Face'' and other popular shows into one evening of entertainment, the plot, set in 1927 America, revolves around Capt. Billy Buck Chandler, a barnstorming aviator, and Edith Herbert, an ex-English Channel swimmer and the star of Prince Nicolai Erraclyovitch Tchatchavadze's International Aquacade. Billy's plan to be the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean is sidetracked by his determination to win Edith's hand, and he takes a crash course in sophistication at Mr. Magix' Tonsorial and Sartorial Emporial to help him achieve his goal. What follows is a series of escapades and misadventures that seems destined to keep the potential lovers apart forever. Background Just prior to out of town tryouts in Boston, the original director, ...
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Sinatra At The London Palladium
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. He is among the world's best-selling music artists with an estimated 150 million record sales. Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra was greatly influenced by the intimate, easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby and began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. He found success as a solo artist after signing with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". Sinatra released his debut album, ''The Voice of Frank Sinatra'', in 1946. When his film career stalled in the early 1950s, Sinatra turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best-known residency performers and part of the famous Rat Pack. His acting career was revived by the 1953 film ...
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Damn Yankees
''Damn Yankees'' is a 1955 musical comedy with a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League Baseball. It is based on Wallop's 1954 novel ''The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant''. The show ran for 1,019 performances in its original Broadway production. Adler and Ross's success with it and ''The Pajama Game'' seemed to point to a bright future for them, but Ross suddenly died of chronic bronchiectasis at age 29, several months after ''Damn Yankees'' opened. Plot NOTE: This is the plot of the 1994 Broadway revival of the show; there are differences from the original 1955 version. For the 1958 film version, see ''Damn Yankees'' (film). Middle-aged real estate agent Joe Boyd is a long-suffering fan of the pathetic Washington Senators baseball team. His wife, Meg, laments th ...
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Nine (musical)
''Nine'' is a musical whose original conception and music and lyrics are by Maury Yeston, with a book by Arthur Kopit. It is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical 1963 film ''8½''. The show tells the story of film director Guido Contini, who is dreading his imminent 40th birthday and facing a midlife crisis, which is blocking his creative impulses and entangling him in a web of romantic difficulties in early-1960s Venice. Conceived and written and composed by Yeston as a class project in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in 1973, it was later adapted with a book by Mario Fratti, and then with another a book by Arthur Kopit. The original Broadway production opened in 1982 and ran for 729 performances, starring Raul Julia. The musical won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and has enjoyed a number of revivals. Background Yeston began to work on the musical in 1973. As a teenager, he had seen the Fellini film and was intrigued by its themes. "I look ...
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Acorn Antiques
''Acorn Antiques'' is a parodic soap opera written by British comedian Victoria Wood as a regular feature in the two series of '' Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV'', which ran from 1985 to 1987. It was turned into a musical by Wood, opening in 2005. Television version Wood originally wrote ''Acorn Antiques'' as a weekly slot in her sketch shows '' Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV''. She based it on the long-running ATV/Central serial ''Crossroads'' (1964-1988), and radio soap ''Waggoners' Walk'' (1969-1980). Swipes were also taken at current soaps such as ''EastEnders'' and ''Coronation Street'' with their apparent low production values, wobbly sets, overacting, appalling dialogue and wildly improbable plots. Its premise—the lives and loves of the staff of an antiques shop in a fictional English town called Manchesterford—hardly reflects the ambitious and implausible storylines, which lampooned the staples of soap operas: love triangles, amnesiacs, sudden deaths and siblings reuni ...
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Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_type2 = Counties , subdivision_name1 = Illinois , subdivision_name2 = Cook and DuPage , established_title = Settled , established_date = , established_title2 = Incorporated (city) , established_date2 = , founder = Jean Baptiste Point du Sable , government_type = Mayor–council , governing_body = Chicago City Council , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Lori Lightfoot ( D) , leader_title1 = City Clerk , leader_name1 = Anna Valencia ( D) , unit_pref = Imperial , area_footnotes = , area_tot ...
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Kiss Me, Kate
''Kiss Me, Kate'' is a musical written by Bella and Samuel Spewack with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's ''The Taming of the Shrew'' and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. A secondary romance concerns Lois Lane, the actress playing Bianca, and her gambler boyfriend, Bill, who runs afoul of some gangsters. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang. ''Kiss Me, Kate'' was Porter's response to Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Oklahoma!'' and other integrated musicals; it was the first show he wrote in which the music and lyrics were firmly connected to the script. The musical premiered in 1948 and proved to be Porter's only show to run for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway. In 1949, it won the first Tony Award for Best Musical. Inspiration The mu ...
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