It might have taken her three decades, but Lea Salonga is heading back to West End in London. The Tony winner will be joining fellow Tony star Bernadette Peters on the stage for Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends in September, the singer has confirmed.
The last time we saw Lea Salonga performing on the West End in London was for the musical Les Miserables at the Palace Theater back in 1996. This time around, the Filipino superstar will be on stage at the Gielgud Theatre for 16 weeks, from September 16, 2023 to January 6, 2024.
Together with Salonga will be the likes of Christine Allado, Janie Dee, Bonnie Langford, Jeremy Secomb, and Beatrice Penny-Toure, among others. The other members of the cast are expected to be announced soon.
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Cameron Mackintosh produced Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends as a tribute to the great composer, who passed away in 2021. He had been one of the most influential figures in 20th-century musical theater.
“Old Friends began its journey to the West End in a conversation I had with Steve during our enforced pandemic isolation—‘It’s time we did a third show’ said Steve, and complete the trilogy that started with Side-by-Side by Sondheim in the 1970s, followed by Putting It Together in the ’90s," Mackintosh said in a statement.
“The response to both the show and the subsequent television version recently screened by the BBC over the New Year has been quite overwhelming, so I am thrilled that Broadway legend, Bernadette Peters, one of my favorite old friends, is going to reprise her brilliant performance in what is astonishingly going to be her British stage debut—to be joined by Lea Salonga," added the producer, "who of course became my youngest old friend, when she created a sensation at the age of 17, starring in the original Miss Saigon—this will be her first West End run since Les Misérables 27 years ago."
Tickets will be on sale beginning February 22.
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