The Other Palace Extends MILLENNIALS and HEATHERS, Plus New Writing Partnership

The Other Palace has announced that following the world premiere of the new musical Millennials, written and composed by Elliot Clay, the show will extend for a further 4 weeks of performances over the summer, due to finish on Sunday 4 September 2022.

Millennials has received acclaim from audiences and critics alike in its first weeks of performances, with the chance to experience these new songs in an immersive and exciting environment.

Millennials turns up the microphone on the lives, the losses, and the frustrations of young people in the modern world. A generation that is so often defined by tabloid headlines, tweets and, of course, avocados, has picked up the mic and transported us inside their extraordinarily ordinary lives.

New casting to be announced.

Millennials is produced by The Other Palace, written and composed by Elliot Clay, with direction by Hannah Benson. Arrangements, sound production and musical supervision by Auburn Jamand choreography by Tinovimbanashe Sibanda, with design and lighting design from Andrew Exeter and costume styling by Rory Mcnerney.

Heathers

With summer break in full flow, it's time to think about the next school year, and Heathers The Musical will be on the register at The Other Palace until 19 February 2023. This extension will see 24 more weeks of corn Nuts, slushies from the 7/11 and buckets of teenage angst.

Plus, for some more Big Fun, there will be a sing-along performance on the evening of Wednesday 18 January, for a singing & dress-up extravaganza!

Casting for Heathers will be announced in due course, but while class is in session, there will be two relaxed performances which will take place on Sunday 9 October 2022 and Sunday 5 February 2023.

Writing Parntership

In addition, the Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass Trust (Masterclass) and The Other Palace will jointly host a programme of events to support young writers in August 2022. This will include writing workshops for 16-18 year olds and a scratch night of new writing.

New Writing Month is an addition to Masterclass' well-established programme of support for young writers, which includes year-round Script Sessions and the biennial writing competition, Pitch Your Play. All events will take place at The Other Palace, which has a formidable reputation for incubating and premiering new work, including its current productions, Heathers The Musical and Millennials.

Clare Annamalai, Programme Director at Masterclass said: "We're so pleased to be working with The Other Palace, where the team really understand and appreciate the work we do to support young aspiring and early-career creatives. It is particularly exciting to bring some of our youngest members into this lively space, to hear and help develop their ideas."

Paul Taylor Mills, Artistic Director at The Other Palace said: "Millennials started its life at my initiative, MTFestUK and it is brilliant to see that this platform is providing the necessary route to allow musicals to move into fully produced shows. This is one of four new shows to be launched from the festival."

Producer Bill Kenwright said: "It was always my intention to celebrate The Other Palace as a home for new musicals when I bought it. But, right now, the question is, what do you do with a sell-out hit musical like Heathers in the meantime? There's never a sensible time to take off any musical that is breaking box office records, playing to capacity and receiving delirious standing ovations, but right now with our industry in the situation it is in and so many shows struggling, it would be almost perverse.

We're delighted to continue to present exciting new work in our studio, supporting the next generation of writers with the Haymarket, and will hopefully continue to fill both theatres with the vibrant audiences that are embracing the building right now."

Produced by Bill Kenwright and Paul Taylor-Mills, the UK premiere of Heathers the Musicalenjoyed two record-breaking opening seasons, launching at The Other Palace and transferring to the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2018; going on to win the WhatsOnStage award for Best New Musical 2019. Additionally last year it also embarked on its first UK Tour which ran until December 2021.

With a book, music and lyrics by Kevin Murphy and Laurence O'Keefe, Heathers the Musical is based on one of the greatest cult teen films of all time, and starred Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. The production is directed by Andy Fickman, with choreography by Thriller Live's Gary Lloyd, designs by David Shields, lighting by Ben Cracknell and sound by Dan Samson.

Westerberg High's Veronica Sawyer is just another nobody dreaming of a better day. But when she joins the beautiful and impossibly cruel Heathers, her dreams of popularity may finally come true. Mysterious teen rebel JD teaches her that it might kill to be a nobody, but it is murder being a somebody...

Masterclass Young Writers

Masterclass Young Writers is an opportunity for 16-18 year olds to explore writing for stage. They will work with writer and Children's Poet Laureate of Wales, Connor Allen, to create a monologue/poem from scratch, collaborate with actors from the Masterclass community and take away a professional audio recording of their work!

Connor's recent autobiographical drama for Radio Four, The Making of a Monster, can be found on BBC Sounds. The stage production will premiere this November at Wales Millenium Centre.

Applications close Thursday 28 July, apply at the link below:
masterclass.org.uk/event/masterclass-young-writers-new-writing-month-1-and-8-august

Script Scratch

Script Scratch showcases and celebrates some of the most interesting writers to have come through Masterclass' Script Sessions and Pitch Your Play programmes, in front of a live audience. The scripts will be performed by actors from the Masterclass community. It is a fantastic networking opportunity for programmers, directors and producers to meet the next generation of writers and performers.

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