Photo Flash: First Look at Southwark Playhouse's DOGFIGHT, Now Playing Through 13 Sept

Dogfight, Music and Lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Book by Peter Duchan, based on the Warner Bros film and screenplay by Bob Comfort, is produced by Danielle Tarento, the award-winning producer of Titanic, Parade and Mack & Mabel, and directed by Matt Ryan, in The Large at Southwark Playhouse for a six-week season through Saturday 13 September.

Dogfight, a new book musical based on the 1991 movie of the same name starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor, premièred Off-Broadway in 2012, winning the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical and it was also nominated for five Outer Critics Circle and two Drama Desk Awards.

November 21, 1963. The night before their deployment to Vietnam, three young Marines set out for one final boys' night of debauchery. But when Corporal Eddie Birdlace meets Rose, the unassuming and idealistic waitress he enlists to win a cruel bet, she rewrites the rules of the game and opens his eyes to what really matters in life.

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Music & Lyrics) have been a composing team since meeting in college. In 2007 they were the youngest ever recipients of the Jonathan Larson Award - named after the late Rent composer - that honours achievement by composers, lyricists and librettists. Pasek and Paul made their Broadway debut last year with A Christmas Story, which received three Tony Award nominations for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score, and six Drama Desk Award nominations including Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Music. Their other stage musicals include Edges and James and the Giant Peach. They composed several original songs for the second season of the Broadway TV drama, Smash.

Photos by Darren Bell