Kevin McHale Will Make UK Stage Debut in Sondheim's THE FROGS

Kevin McHale will make his UK stage debut in Sondheim's The Frogs, coming to Southwark Playhouse Borough next year. McHale is best known for his role of Artie on the television series Glee.

Can art save civilization? Let’s find out! Shaken by a divided and despairing political climate (sound familiar?), Dionysos and trusty sidekick Xanthias take a leap of faith—straight into Hades. Their mission? Find a cure for an ailing world. But when they reach the River Styx, they encounter Dionysos’ worst nightmare… frogs. Not your average pond dwellers, these amphibians are stubborn beings who resist change and are determined for the status quo to remain the same (sound familiar?) Will our dynamic duo outsmart these swampy naysayers and hop toward humanity’s salvation? Or will they get bogged down in their muddy resistance?

This is an ancient tale retold as a laugh-a-minute musical comedy. From the writing team behind ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ and Broadway legend Nathan Lane, ‘The Frogs’ promises a toad-ally unforgettable journey.

Kevin McHale (Xanthias), making his UK stage debut, is a Grammy-nominated and SAG Award winning actor, best known for playing Artie Abrams on the Fox TV series Glee. His character, who uses a wheelchair after a car accident, joins the McKinley High glee club in the first episode, and he had his first solo performance when he sang “Dancing with Myself”. Kevin has appeared in multiple TV series since including The Office, When We Rise, and Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Stories. As a singer, he released his debut EP in 2019. Kevin and his Glee costar, Jenna Ushkowitz, currently host the hit iHeart Podcast “And That’s What You Really Missed.” He recently starred in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the prestigious Kennedy Center.

Producers The Grey Area are bringing another lesser known Stephen Sondheim show to Southwark Playhouse Borough after their hit 2022 production of Anyone Can Whistle.

The first production of The Frogs was written and directed by Burt Shevelove in 1971, while he was a graduate student at Yale University. It was staged in the swimming pool in the Payne Whitney Gymnasium with the Frogs, played by members of the Yale swimming team, swimming around the boat. The ensemble included then Yale students Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver and playwright Christopher Durang. Stephen Sondheim compared the acoustics of the production to “putting on a show in a men’s urinal”. For the 2004 Broadway revival, Sondheim wrote seven new songs.