The world premiere of the long-awaited Jim
Steinman’s Bat Out Of Hell – The Musical will take place in London’s
West End at the London Coliseum, opening on Tuesday 20 June 2017, following
previews from 5 June, for a limited season until 22 July 2017. This follows previews at Manchester Opera
House from 17 February to 8 April 2017.
As with many great works of art, the genesis of the
Bat Out Of Hell album occurred across a number of years. One of the songs was written while Steinman
was an undergraduate at Amherst College in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, Steinman wrote a theatrical musical
that was presented in workshop in Washington D.C. in 1974 and featured many of
the songs that would ultimately appear on the Bat Out Of Hell album, which was released in 1977.
Bat Out Of
Hell
became one of the best-selling albums in history, selling over 50 million copies
worldwide. 16 years later, Steinman
scored again with Bat Out Of Hell II:
Back Into Hell, which contained the massive hit I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).
For the stage musical, the legendary and
award-winning Jim Steinman has incorporated iconic songs from the Bat Out Of Hell albums, including You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth,
Bat Out Of Hell, I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) and Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad, as well as
two previously unreleased songs, What
Part of My Body Hurts the Most and Not
Allowed to Love.
Jim Steinman’s Bat Out Of Hell – The Musical is
a romantic adventure about rebellious youth and passionate love, set against
the backdrop of a post-cataclysmic city adrift from the mainland. Strat, the forever young leader of The Lost,
has fallen for Raven, daughter of Falco, the tyrannical, ruler of Obsidian.
Jim Steinman’s previous musicals include his
collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber on Whistle
Down the Wind, including the hit single released by Boyzone, No Matter What, and the musical Tanz der Vampire, which has been running
for 20 years and has been presented in Vienna, Stuttgart, Berlin, Hamburg, Paris,
Budapest, Warsaw, St Petersburg and Tokyo.
Directed by award-winning theatre and opera
director Jay Scheib, the cast of Bat Out Of Hell – The Musical will
be led by newcomer Andrew Polec as Strat and Christina Bennington as Raven,
with Rob Fowler as Falco and Sharon Sexton as Sloane. Also starring will be Aran MacRae as Tink,
Danielle Steers as Zahara, Dom Hartley-Harris as Jagwire, Giovanni Spano as
Ledoux and Patrick Sullivan as Blake.
Also in the cast will be Jemma Alexander, Emily Benjamin, Stuart Boother,
Georgia Carling, Natalie Chua, Jonathan Cordin, Amy Di Bartolomeo, Jordan Lee
Davies, Olly Dobson, Hannah Ducharme, Phoebe Hart, Rosalind James, Michael
Naylor, Eve Norris, Tim Oxbrow, Andrew Patrick-Walker, Benjamin Purkiss,
Anthony Selwyn, Courtney Stapleton and Ruben Van keer.
Bat Out Of Hell - The Musical has book by Jim Steinman
and Stuart Beattie, music and lyrics by Jim Steinman, direction by Jay Scheib,
choreography by Emma Portner, with musical arrangements and supervision by
Michael Reed, set design by Jon Bausor, costume design by Meentje Nielsen,
video design by Finn Ross, lighting design by Patrick Woodroffe, sound design
by Gareth Owen, orchestration by Steve Sidwell, casting by David Grindrod
Associates and musical direction by Robert Emery.
Jim Steinman’s Bat Out Of Hell – The Musical is produced by David
Sonenberg, Michael Cohl, Randy Lennox, Tony Smith, and produced in association
with Bat Out of Hell Holding Limited.
