Ghost The Musical
To Open At The Piccadilly Theatre Spring 2011
Music And Lyrics By Dave Stewart & Glen Ballard For
Bruce Joel Rubin’s New Stage Adaptation, Directed Matthew Warchus
Tickets will go on sale on Thursday 23 September for Ghost The Musical which begins its
West End run at the Piccadilly Theatre on 22 June 2011, with booking open for
performances until 28 January 2012. Matthew Warchus’ production of the Academy
Award® winning film Ghost has new music and lyrics by Grammy® award winning Dave
Stewart and Glen Ballard. Oscar® winning Bruce Joel Rubin will adapt his original
screen play for the stage and write lyrics. Set and costumes designs are by Rob Howell,
musical supervision and arrangements by Christopher Nightingale, illusions are by Paul
Kieve, choreography is by Ashley Wallen with lighting by Hugh Vanstone and sound by
Simon Baker. Casting will be announced shortly.
West End press preview performances are Friday 15 July at 7.30pm, Saturday 16 July at
2.30pm and 7.30pm, Monday 18 July at 7.30pm and Gala Night Tuesday 19 July at 7pm,
with reviews embargoed until Wednesday 20 July 2011.
Ghost The Musical will receive its premiere at the Opera House, Manchester running from
28 March – 14 May 2011 for a strictly limited 7 week season.
A timeless story about the power of love, Sam is trapped as a ghost between this world and
the next trying to communicate with his girlfriend Molly through a phoney psychic in the
hope of saving her from his murderer. Ghost, based on the Oscar® winning Paramount
pictures film, will feature new music and lyrics as well as the classic Unchained Melody.
Winning two Academy Awards® - Bruce Joel Rubin's script won an Oscar® for Best Original
Screenplay and Whoopi Goldberg won the Oscar® for Best Actress in a Supporting Role –
Ghost was the highest grossing film in the UK in 1990. Starring Patrick Swayze, Demi
Moore, Tony Goldwyn and Whoopi Goldberg, Ghost was directed by Jerry Zucker. The film's
iconic love scene at a potter's wheel was famously performed to The Righteous Brothers’
Unchained Melody.
Dave Stewart has built a repertoire of remarkable songs that have been performed by
some of the most influential musicians of our time. In 1999 Stewart, along with his
Eurythmics partner Annie Lennox, was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at
the Brit Awards having sold over 75 million albums with hits like Here Comes The Rain
Again, Who’s That Girl, Would I Lie To You, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves (with
Aretha Franklin) and Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). Stewart was recently presented
with the Legend in Songwriting award from the City of Hope, and has collaborated, both as
a songwriter and producer, with several of today’s biggest stars in music. Stewart recently
released Dave Stewart Songbook, Vol. 1, that includes his hits with Tom Petty (Don’t Come
Around Here No More), No Doubt (Underneath It All), Mick Jagger (Old Habits Die Hard)
which won a Golden Globe for Best Song in the film Alfie and Celine Dion (Taking Chances).
In his new capacity as Nokia’s Change Agent, Stewart is charged with leading the Artists
Advisory Committee which ensures the artist’s point of view is represented in the “new
world.” In conjunction with his company, Weapons of Mass Entertainment, Stewart is
poised to rethink, reshape and reinvent music, film, television, books, theatre, new media
and eventually the entire creative process.
Six-time Grammy® award winner Glen Ballard is one of popular music’s most
accomplished producers/songwriters and arrangers. He has sold more than 150 million
records worldwide, and has worked with a diverse array of the finest singers and artists in
the business, from Aretha Franklin to Van Halen and Aerosmith to Michael Jackson. One of
Ballard’s biggest successes involved chart-topping, multi platinum album Jagged Little Pill
(33 million worldwide, four Grammys – including Album of the Year) which Ballard co-wrote
and produced for Alanis Morissette, and was named Best Album of the Decade (1990s) by
Billboard magazine. Ballard has most recently had success writing hit songs for film,
including the Grammy® winning and Oscar® nominated Believe for Polar Express, Ordinary
Miracle for Charlotte’s Web, and A Hero Comes Home for Beowulf.
Bruce Joel Rubin won an Academy Award® for his original screenplay, Ghost. The film
was also nominated for Best Picture. He has written numerous other screenplays including
Jacob’s Ladder, Deep Impact, Stuart Little 2, The Last Mimzy, The Time Traveller’s Wife and
My Life, which he also directed.
International theatre director Matthew Warchus’ many credits include Deathtrap currently
playing at the Noel Coward Theatre, La Bête which has recently completed a West End run
prior to a Broadway transfer later this month, Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests for
the Old Vic - which he also directed on Broadway, God of Carnage in the West End and on
Broadway, Boeing-Boeing in the West End, on tour in the UK and on Broadway, where it
won a Tony for Best Revival, Endgame at the Albery Theatre, the multi award-winning Art in
London, on Broadway and in Los Angeles, True West for the Donmar Warehouse, The
Unexpected Man and Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Buried Child, Life x 3 and
Volpone for the National Theatre. In addition he has directed the following musicals - Tell
Me on a Sunday, Our House - which won the Olivier Award for Best Musical – and Follies on
Broadway. His opera productions include Cosi Fan Tutte, Falstaff for English National Opera
and Troilus and Cressida for Opera North. Warchus will direct Matilda for the RSC opening in
November this year.
Stage and screen illusionist Paul Kieve’s many theatre credits include The Witches of
Eastwick at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Our House at the Cambridge Theatre, Theatre of
Blood for the National Theatre, Scrooge at the London Palladium, The Invisible Man at the
Theatre Royal Stratford East and in the West End and Improbable Theatre Company’s
Cinderella at the Lyric Hammersmith. On film his work includes Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban. As well as extensive opera and dance credits, Kieve is a consultant to
Derren Brown and David Copperfield, and is a member of the Magic Circle.
Ashley Wallen’s credits as a choreographer include Dance X for BBC1 where he also
appeared as a judge and mentor alongside Arlene Phillips, the X Factor and It’s Now or
Never both for ITV and Rent Remixed at the Duke of York’s Theatre. Wallen has
choreographed for many artists including Kylie Minogue, Dannii Minogue, James Morrison,
Leona Lewis, Sugababes, Will Young, Lemar and Gabrielle Cilmi. His on screen dance credits
include Moulin Rouge and Phantom of the Opera and on stage he performed with Mariah
Carey and Kylie Minogue. Wallen is currently working as Associate Choreographer on
Madonna’s film W.E due to be released in 2011.
LISTINGS INFORMATION
MANCHESTER
Dates
28 March – 14 May 2011
Address
Opera House, Quay Street, Manchester M3
Performance schedule
Monday – Saturday at 7.30pm, Thursday & Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
first Thursday matinee on 21 April at 2.30pm
extra matinees Tuesday’s 26 April & 3 May at 2.30pm
Access performance
captioned performance Saturday 7 May at 2.30pm
Ticket prices
£17.50 - £43.50, plus concessions
WEST END
Dates
from 22 June 2011 with booking until 28 January 2012
Address
Piccadilly Theatre, Denman Street, London W1D 7DY
Performance schedule
Monday – Saturday at 7.30pm, Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
first Thursday matinee 21 July
extra matinee on Tuesday 25 October at 2.30pm
Press Performances
Friday 15 July at 7.30pm, Saturday 16 July at 2.30pm and 7.30pm,
Monday 18 July at 7.30pm, Gala Night Tuesday 19 July at 7pm,
with reviews embargoed until Wednesday 20 July 2011.
Ticket prices
£25 - £65