Tickets On Sale Sept 23 For GHOST: The Musical

Tickets will go on sale on Thursday 23 September for Ghost The Musical which begins its West End run at the Piccadilly Theatre on 22 June 2011, with booking open for performances until 28 January 2012. Matthew Warchus' production of the Academy Award® winning film Ghost has new music and lyrics by Grammy® award winning Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard. Oscar® winning Bruce Joel Rubin will adapt his original screen play for the stage and write lyrics. Set and costumes designs are by Rob Howell, musical supervision and arrangements by Christopher Nightingale, illusions are by Paul Kieve, choreography is by Ashley Wallen with lighting by Hugh Vanstone and sound by Simon Baker. Casting will be announced shortly.

Ghost The Musical will receive its premiere at the Opera House, Manchester running from 28 March - 14 May 2011 for a strictly limited 7 week season.

A timeless story about the power of love, Sam is trapped as a ghost between this world and the next trying to communicate with his girlfriend Molly through a phoney psychic in the hope of saving her from his murderer. Ghost, based on the Oscar® winning Paramount Pictures film, will feature new music and lyrics as well as the classic Unchained Melody.

Winning two Academy Awards® - Bruce Joel Rubin's script won an Oscar® for Best Original Screenplay and Whoopi Goldberg won the Oscar® for Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Ghost was the highest grossing film in the UK in 1990. Starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Tony Goldwyn and Whoopi Goldberg, Ghost was directed by Jerry Zucker. The film's iconic love scene at a potter's wheel was famously performed to The Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody.

Dave Stewart has built a repertoire of remarkable songs that have been performed by some of the most influential musicians of our time. In 1999 Stewart, along with his Eurythmics partner Annie Lennox, was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brit Awards having sold over 75 million albums with hits like Here Comes The Rain Again, Who's That Girl, Would I Lie To You, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves (with Aretha Franklin) and Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). Stewart was recently presented with the Legend in Songwriting award from the City of Hope, and has collaborated, both as a songwriter and producer, with several of today's biggest stars in music. Stewart recently released Dave Stewart Songbook, Vol. 1, that includes his hits with Tom Petty (Don't Come Around Here No More), No Doubt (Underneath It All), Mick Jagger (Old Habits Die Hard) which won a Golden Globe for Best Song in the film Alfie and Celine Dion (Taking Chances). In his new capacity as Nokia's Change Agent, Stewart is charged with leading the Artists Advisory Committee which ensures the artist's point of view is represented in the "new world." In conjunction with his company, Weapons of Mass Entertainment, Stewart is poised to rethink, reshape and reinvent music, film, television, books, theatre, new media and eventually the entire creative process.

Six-time Grammy® award winner Glen Ballard is one of popular music's most accomplished producers/songwriters and arrangers. He has sold more than 150 million records worldwide, and has worked with a diverse array of the finest singers and artists in the business, from Aretha Franklin to Van Halen and Aerosmith to Michael Jackson. One of Ballard's biggest successes involved chart-topping, multi platinum album Jagged Little Pill (33 million worldwide, four Grammys - including Album of the Year) which Ballard co-wrote and produced for Alanis Morissette, and was named Best Album of the Decade (1990s) by Billboard magazine. Ballard has most recently had success writing hit songs for film, including the Grammy® winning and Oscar® nominated Believe for Polar Express, Ordinary Miracle for Charlotte's Web, and A Hero Comes Home for Beowulf.
Bruce Joel Rubin won an Academy Award® for his original screenplay, Ghost. The film was also nominated for Best Picture. He has written numerous other screenplays including Jacob's Ladder, Deep Impact, Stuart Little 2, The Last Mimzy, The Time Traveller's Wife and My Life, which he also directed.
InterNational Theatre director Matthew Warchus' many credits include Deathtrap currently playing at the Noel Coward Theatre, La Bête which has recently completed a West End run prior to a Broadway transfer later this month, Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests for the Old Vic - which he also directed on Broadway, God of Carnage in the West End and on Broadway, Boeing-Boeing in the West End, on tour in the UK and on Broadway, where it won a Tony for Best Revival, Endgame at the Albery Theatre, the multi award-winning Art in London, on Broadway and in Los Angeles, True West for the Donmar Warehouse, The Unexpected Man and Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Buried Child, Life x 3 and Volpone for the National Theatre. In addition he has directed the following musicals - Tell Me on a Sunday, Our House - which won the Olivier Award for Best Musical - and Follies on Broadway. His opera productions include Cosi Fan Tutte, Falstaff for English National Opera and Troilus and Cressida for Opera North. Warchus will direct Matilda for the RSC opening in November this year.

Stage and screen illusionist Paul Kieve's many theatre credits include The Witches of Eastwick at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Our House at the Cambridge Theatre, Theatre of Blood for the National Theatre, Scrooge at the London Palladium, The Invisible Man at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and in the West End and Improbable Theatre Company's Cinderella at the Lyric Hammersmith. On film his work includes Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. As well as extensive opera and dance credits, Kieve is a consultant to Derren Brown and David Copperfield, and is a member of the Magic Circle.

Ashley Wallen's credits as a choreographer include Dance X for BBC1 where he also appeared as a judge and mentor alongside Arlene Phillips, the X Factor and It's Now or Never both for ITV and Rent Remixed at the Duke of York's Theatre. Wallen has choreographed for many artists including Kylie Minogue, Dannii Minogue, James Morrison, Leona Lewis, Sugababes, Will Young, Lemar and Gabrielle Cilmi. His on screen dance credits include Moulin Rouge and Phantom of the Opera and on stage he performed with Mariah Carey and Kylie Minogue. Wallen is currently working as Associate Choreographer on Madonna's film W.E due to be released in 2011.

LISTINGS INFORMATION

MANCHESTER

Dates 28 March - 14 May 2011

Address Opera House, Quay Street, Manchester M3

Performance schedule Monday - Saturday at 7.30pm, Thursday & Saturday matinees at 2.30pm

first Thursday matinee on 21 April at 2.30pm

extra matinees Tuesday's 26 April & 3 May at 2.30pm

Access performance captioned performance Saturday 7 May at 2.30pm

Box Office 0844 847 2295

Ticket prices £17.50 - £43.50, plus concessions

Website www.ghostthemusical.com

WEST END

Dates from 22 June 2011 with booking until 28 January 2012

Address Piccadilly Theatre, Denman Street, London W1D 7DY

Performance schedule Monday - Saturday at 7.30pm, Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm

first Thursday matinee 21 July

extra matinee on Tuesday 25 October at 2.30pm

Press Performances Friday 15 July at 7.30pm, Saturday 16 July at 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Monday 18 July at 7.30pm, Gala Night Tuesday 19 July at 7pm, with reviews embargoed until Wednesday 20 July 2011.
Box Office 0844 871 7618

Ticket prices £25 - £65

Website www.ghostthemusical.com