COMING HOME: Lauren Byrne, currently in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella at the Gillian Lynne Theatre

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back! 

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s journey to open Cinderella at the Gillian Lynne Theatre has probably been one of the most documented and talked-about stories in relation to the reopening of theatres. This new retelling of the classic fairytale opened on the 25th June 2021 with an opening night of the 20th July, this has been changed due to performances being suspended because of a COVID related case. With music by Lloyd Webber Himself, lyrics by David Zippel and a book by Emerald Fennell, the show is one of the handful of new musicals opening theatre again after the closure of theatres because of the pandemic. 

Lauren Byrne is appearing in the shows ensemble and is also covering the title role. Making her West End debut in the musical, she was previously playing the role of Jane Seymour in the UK Touring production of Six the Musical. Her other credits include Swing and cover Cynthia and Carole in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (UK Tour), Mabel and Dance Captain in Blondel (Union Theatre) and Understudy Rasa, Peggy, Gwen and Joyce in Sunny Afternoon (UK Tour). Lauren is the co-founder of the new training system ‘In3 Arts’, providing part-time training alongside her ex-Six cast member Harriet Watson. 

COMING HOME: Michael Afemaré, appearing in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella at the Gillian Lynne Theatre

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back! 

Michael Afemaré was due to perform in the transfer production of Evita. The show was revived in a brand new production at the Regent’s Park, Open Air Theatre in 2019 and was meant to be taking over the Barbican in the summer of 2020. But, with the closure of theatres, the production, unfortunately, didn’t go ahead. What that meant for Michael was that he had lost out on a wonderful job. But, we mustn’t focus on the negatives because the day before we met Michael, it was announced that he would be joining the original London company of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella. Having previously been in the original London cast of Dreamgirls at the Savoy Theatre, he is no stranger to a West End premiere! 

Over the past year, so many issues have been brought to the surface and highlighted in our industry. So many important conversations have been going on and with theatre now planning on reopening, this is the time for the change and progress we’ve been campaigning for. Michael feels incredibly passionate about the lack of representation of ethnicity within the industry, in particular artists of Indian and Asian heritage. Something interesting that he also brings up is, this isn’t just about the casts and people we see on stage, it goes way beyond that, “I am always trying to fight the fight for more equal opportunities, but these opportunities also need to exist beyond theatre casts. I would love for there to be a world where representation and diversity can be noted and appreciated in more positions of power; creative teams, directors, choreographers, casting directors - the list is endless.”