Jamie Muscato and Laura Jane Matthewson Set to Lead European Premiere of DOGFIGHT at Southwark Playhouse

Casting is announced for the European première of the musical Dogfight, 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 from Friday 8 August to 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.

Heading the London cast in the central roles of Eddie and Rose are Jamie Muscato and Laura Jane Matthewson.

Jamie Muscato was in the world première of The Light Princess at the National Theatre. He has also appeared in LES MISERABLES (both the feature film and on the international tour), Rock Of Ages at the Shaftesbury, Love Story at Chichester and the Duchess and Spring Awakening at Lyric Hammersmith. Recently he was in the developmemt workshops of the musicals Bend It Like Beckham and Blitz! and has just finished filming the TV biopic, Cilla.

Laura Jane Matthewson won The Ronald Wlliam White Prize for Acting Through Song at The Royal Academy of Music. Dogfight is her London stage debut in a starring role.

The rest of the cast are: Emily Olive Boyd; Cellen Chugg Jones; Nicholas Corre (West End Men, Vaudeville); Matthew Cutts (King Marchand inVictor/Victoria at Southwark Playhouse; Starlight Express; Saturday Night Fever; Grease); Joshua Dowen (Cool Rider, Duchess); Ciaran Joyce (LES MISERABLES; best known for playing Lol in three series of the BBC drama, The Story of Tracy Beaker); Amanda Minihan (the multi award- winning Merrily We Roll Along, Menier and Harold Pinter; Sister Act; The Producers); Rebecca Trehearn (Molly, the lead, in Ghost on tour; Love Story, Duchess; Dirty Dancing,Aldwych; We Will Rock You, Dominon; Aspects of Love for Trevor Nunn at the Menier); Samuel J. Weir (Frankie Epps in Parade at Southwark Playhouse;Carnival of the Animals; the world première of Monkee Business at Manchester Opera House; the LES MISERABLES feature film).