Olivier-Award winner Tamsin Greig makes her musical theatre debut in the UK première of David Yazbek and Jeffrey Lane’s new musical comedy adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar’s Oscar-nominated film “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”. Directed by Tony Award-winner Bartlett Sher, and with an international cast that includes Ricardo Afonso, Marianne Benedict, Haydn Gwynne, Seline Hizli, Holly James, Michael Matus, Rebecca McKinnis, Sarah Moyle, Alastair Natkiel, Haydn Oakley, Jérôme Pradon, Nuno Queimado, Dale Rapley, Anna Skellern, and Willemijn Verkaik, “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” will open at The Playhouse Theatre on 12 January 2015.
Olivier-Award winner Tamsin Greig makes her musical theatre debut in the UK première of David Yazbek and Jeffrey Lane’s new musical comedy adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar’s Oscar-nominated film “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”. Directed by Tony Award-winner Bartlett Sher, and with an international cast that includes Ricardo Afonso, Marianne Benedict, Haydn Gwynne, Seline Hizli, Holly James, Michael Matus, Rebecca McKinnis, Sarah Moyle, Alastair Natkiel, Haydn Oakley, Jérôme Pradon, Nuno Queimado, Dale Rapley, Anna Skellern, and Willemijn Verkaik, “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” will open at The Playhouse Theatre on 12 January 2015.
On the streets of Madrid, a city pulsing with art, industry and passion, Pepa’s world is unravelling. Her lover leaves her. And then she meets his wife. And his son. And his new girlfriend. Meanwhile, Pepa’s best friend is tangled up in her own romantic crisis with a suspected criminal, leaving Pepa with only the taxi driver to help navigate the Gran Vía ahead.
Originally based by Almodóvar on Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, and inspired by the comedy of Billy Wilder and Feydeau, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was his first international hit. It captured a liberated Spain, placing women at the centre of their own experience. Pepa (Tamsin Greig), Candela (Anna Skellern) and Lucia (Haydn Gwynne) became iconic, showing women struggling for power over their own lives, and was filled with enormous humour and style. It also marked the breakout of one of our most important and unique international film directors.
Bartlett Sher has directed numerous operas for the Metropolitan Opera (Two Boys, L’Elisir d’Amore, Le Comte Ory, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia), as well as for Salzburg Opera (Roméo et Juliette), and Seattle Opera/New York City Opera (Mourning Becomes Electra).
David Yazbek (Music & Lyrics) has most notably written the music and lyrics to the musical adaptations of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which has recently opened at The Savoy Theatre and The Full Monty. Both scores have earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Original Score and Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics. Yazbek was also a contributing lyricist for the musical Bombay Dreams and is also part of the creative team developing a stage musical version of the film Tootsie.
Pedro Almodóvar is a multi-award winning director and screenwriter best known for films including All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006), The Skin I Live In (2011) and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1998). Almodóvar has famously worked with actors Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz, making them international household names. His film Live Flesh (1998) won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, sparking continued success and multiple awards including a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film with Talk to Her (2002), a BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language with All About My Mother (1999), as well as a Cannes Film Festival Award for best screenplay with Volver (2006). Almodóvar most recently received the highly prestigious Lumière Prize, presented to him in 2014.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a funny and moving musical, is produced in the West End by Howard Panter for The Ambassador Theatre Group.
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Website: www.WomenOnTheVergeMusical.com