WE ONLY DO IT TO GET GIRLS, Featuring Songs By Sterling and Orton, at the Freedom Bar, Soho, June 3

 

On Sunday June 3 Soho’s chic and trendy nightclub space, the Freedom Bar - which has long been the venue of choice for London’s media, fashion and entertainment crowd - will host the latest in the series of “Gigging For It” cabarets showcasing new musical theatre writing: We Only Do It To Get Girls - Songs By Joe Sterling and Christopher J. Orton.

Joe Sterling is an actor from Shropshire, who covered/played the role of Mowgli in the 2011 UK tour of The Jungle Book, and an emerging singer-songwriter. He was one of the featured musical theatre songwriters at SimG Productions’ cabaret Easter With The Composers at The Battersea Barge in March 2012. His debut album - Somewhere In My Mind: the Songs of Joe Sterling (released on April 9 by SimG Records) - has earned some glowing reviews, notably from Andy Propst of TheatreMania, who wrote that “Sterling’s gorgeous songs tell witty and heartfelt stories in the vernacular of contemporary pop”, and John Roberts of The Public Reviews, who described Sterling as “the freshest and possibly hottest new talent in musical theatre”. At the "Gigging For It" show Sterling will present a number of songs from his album (drawn primarily from the musical Roundabout by Sterling and RoBert Gould) as well as premiering some of his singer-songwriter material.

Composer/lyricist Christopher J. Orton will showcase some of his stand-alone songs as well as songs from his musicals Based on A True Story, Elephant Juice, Grace Notes and My Land’s Shore. Chepstow-born Orton will make his West End debut in July as Lancelot in Spamalot at the Harold Pinter Theatre (having played the role during the recent UK tour). Previous credits include roles in Spend, Spend, Spend, Martin Guerre and The Hot Mikado (all at the Watermill Theatre) and Songs For A New World (Freiburg, Germany). A workshop production of Based On A True Story (co-written by Orton and librettist/lyricist RoBert Gould) was staged at the Jermyn Street Theatre in January 2010 and a studio cast album of the Orton/Gould epic historical musical My Land’s Shore was released by SimG Records in February 2012. My Land’s Shore has been vaunted by Craig Revel Horwood as a “Welsh Les Mis” with “a powerful story and beautiful, soaring score” and Olivier Award winners Stiles and Drewe described Orton’s score as “soaring, passionate and hauntingly melodic”.

Orton and Sterling will be joined on stage by a handful of guest vocalists, including Ben Stott (Wicked, Into The Woods), Hannah Malekzad (Spamalot) and “Gigging For It” Artistic Director/Producer Michelle LaFortune. Born and raised on Vancouver Island, Miss LaFortune was a highly promising young performer and choreographer before leaving the Canadian West Coast to train at the prestigious Randolph Academy of the Performing Arts in Toronto as a singer, dancer and actor. During her time in Toronto, Michelle appeared in the stage play The Heidi Chronicles, the Canadian premiere of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Since moving to the UK in 2008, she has worked as a recording artist at Universal Studios London, played a leading role in the Dominic Symonds musical Sweet FA at The New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth and appeared in the Olivier Award-winning Off West End production of La Boheme at the King's Head Theatre.

Together with musical director Simon Lambert, Michelle LaFortune founded “Gigging For It” (a musical theatre cabaret show that runs on the first Sunday of every month at Freedom) as a performance vehicle to not only showcase the talent of a range of musical theatre performers but also to present musical theatre material in a fun, nightclub atmosphere that will appeal to both diehard show-tune fans and - in words quoted on the “Gigging For It” website - “even that guy that thinks musical theatre is for pussies”. As well as presenting popular MT fare, “Gigging For It” is also firmly committed to promoting new writing. Recent cabarets have featured the work of songwriters Laurence Mark Wythe, Michael Bradley & PatRick Clarke and Craig Christie. And it has already been announced that future songwriters whose work will be showcased at “Gigging For It” will include Dougal Irvine, Elliot Davis and 2011 Stiles and Drewe Award winner Tim Sutton.

“Gigging For It: WE ONLY DO IT TO GET GIRLS - SONGS BY JOE STERLING & CHRISTOPHER J. ORTON”

Venue: Freedom, 66 Wardour Street, Soho, London

Date: Sunday June 3^rd (from 7.30. pm - doors open 6.30. pm

Tickets at the door: £7 before 7.30. £9 after

 

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