Following this summer’s announcement that Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s legendary musical Miss Saigon would return to the West End in its 25th anniversary year, dates have been announced for the eagerly awaited production.
Miss Saigon, which made its world premiere in London in 1989 winning two Olivier Awards before enjoying an impressive 10 year run, will play at the Prince Edward theatre from 3 May. Booking will go on sale on 9 September with tickets available for performances until 25 October.
Based on Giacomo Puccini’s famous opera Madame Butterfly, Miss Saigon transports the classic love story to the final days of the American occupation of Saigon in 1975. There American GI John buys the services of 17-year-old Kim, an orphan who has been forced to work as a bar girl in a sleazy nightclub, for fellow soldier Chris. As the pair falls in love, but find themselves tragically separated when the war ends, their night together unexpectedly leads to life-changing consequences.
Speaking about the much-anticipated return of the show to the West End, the show’s producer Cameron Mackintosh said: “10 years ago I decided to reconceive the show in a completely re-imagined physical production that could play a far greater number of theatres than the original, but still retains Bob Avian’s legendary musical staging and the same scale of cast. As well as touring the UK with enormous success the new production directed by Laurence Connor has been seen in numerous countries around the world where it has been embraced by audiences and critics alike with as much enthusiasm as the original.
Featuring a brand new song that will appear in the production amongst classics including Movie In My Mind, Why, God, Why?, Sun And Moon and Last Night Of The World, the production, according to Mackintosh, promises “a more gritty and realistic approach to the design than the operatic original” while still retaining the “power and epic sweep of Boublil and Schönberg’s great score”.
Explaining the choice to revive the show in its 25th anniversary year, Mackintosh explained: “Of all my shows Miss Saigon is probably the one I have the most requests to bring back… These requests are not only from a public who remembers seeing it originally but from a generation of new audiences who were too young (or not even born!) to get to see it. Now that the very successful Jersey Boys has decided to move to a more intimate theatre I now have the perfect theatre.”
As Mackintosh says, long-running hit Jersey Boys will move to the Piccadilly theatre from March, making room for the multi award-winning epic musical.