All-Star Lineup Tapped for ELEGIES FOR ANGELS, PUNKS AND RAGING QUEENS Gala

The British Theatre Academy is presenting a concert of Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens at Charing Cross Theatre on Sunday 4 September.

Funds raised will go towards giving young people opportunities to train and perform for free in professional theatres.

Heading the cast of students and professionals are Jaymi Hensley (Union J), Anton Stephans (X Factor), Gerard McCarthy (The Fall), Edward Bennett (Photograph 51), Max Bowden and Becky Craven (Waterloo Road), Harry Francis (The Book Of Mormon), and Matthew Seadon Young (Urinetown).

Elegies For Angels Punks and Raging Queens is a musical song cycle with a blues, jazz and rock score inspired by the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, with music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell.

Dramatic, powerful and emotionally intense, it celebrates those who have lost their lives to AIDS. A series of heart-rending monologues and songs represent the feelings of friends and family members dealing with the loss, from some 30 individuals who died as a result of contracting AIDS from a wide variety of sources, including a regular Joe who dropped into a brothel to a granny who was given an infected blood transfusion. Each coming from very different walks of life, every character has their own unique story to share, but one tragic link in common. Interspersing these stories are the poignant and uplifting songs from the victims' loved ones, reminding us that AIDS affects the lives of more than the individual sufferers.

The British Theatre Academy has been set up to give young people who can not afford to access theatre theatre training the opportunity to work with top creatives in venues around the country.

A cast of 300 British Theatre Academy performers are currently appearing in the West End this summer in a special family version of the Tony award- winning musical The Secret Garden, based on the 1911 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett with script and lyrics by Pulitzer prize and Tony award-winner MarSha Norman and music by Grammy award-winner Lucy Simon. The Secret Garden, directed by Rupert Hands, will run 6 weeks at the Ambassadors Thea- tre from Wednesday 27 July to Wednesday 31 August.

Tickets from £17:50 can be booked at www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk or on 08444 930 650. Proceeds will go to continuing the great work of THE BTA giving young people the chance to perform for free.

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