West End performances of the eagerly anticipated musical Hamilton will reopen the brand new Victoria Palace Theatre two weeks later than previously announced.
Previews will now begin on 6 December 2017, rather than 21 November as was originally announced. This follows a multi-million pound expansion and restoration to the listed Victoria Palace Theatre.
As a result, 16 performances will need to be rescheduled. Customers who have purchased tickets via official Hamilton channels for the performances affected by the rescheduled previews will be contacted directly by Ticketmaster in order to be re-seated.
All seats that were put on sale for the first booking period to June 2018 have now sold out. However, a large numbers of seats were held in reserve to be released at the time the building was nearing completion which will allow affected patrons to be re-seated early in the run with a minimum of inconvenience. Once the reseating has been completed, the remaining tickets for this first booking period will be put on sale in October.
Cameron Mackintosh, owner of the Victoria Palace Theatre and Co-Producer of Hamilton, explained: “The massive redevelopment in Victoria by Land Securities and Transport For London gave me a once in a hundred years opportunity to expand and restore the Victoria Palace Theatre. It has been an extraordinary undertaking, both thrilling and fraught, not only because of the complexity of putting what is practically a brand new building into the shell of a much loved historical masterpiece, but because it was also the ideal theatre for the most eagerly awaited American musical in decades Hamilton.
“The time constraints to access the land around the theatre to enable the rebuild and getting the show open to the public by the end of this year have been equally tight, not helped by the theatre being built over the huge King’s Scholars’ Pond Sewer, an active 200 year-old brick tunnel.
“Added to the usual unhelpful problems that always happen when doing up old buildings, this has put pressure on the time needed to commission the entirely new services that have been installed at the theatre and obtain the necessary licences to reopen to the public. We have therefore needed to take a pragmatic decision to reschedule the previews of Hamilton to commence on December 6th, two weeks later than originally planned.
“I am, of course, sorry to amend the performance schedule but undertaking a private rebuilding project on this scale in Central London has no precedent.”
“Thanks to the phenomenal efforts of the amazing team (of hundreds!) working often around the clock to get the theatre ready, I look forward to welcoming our patrons to the newly constructed theatre where Frank Matcham’s masterpiece will be revealed in even greater splendour as a spectacular home for this landmark musical.”
Jeffrey Seller, Producer, said: “We are extremely sorry to disappoint patrons who we know expended time, effort, and valuable resources to purchase tickets for our first performances. But they will be given immediate priority so that they can be re-seated as early as possible.”
“We have been looking forward to coming to London since the day after we opened in New York. We chose the Victoria Palace Theatre because it will be the very best place to experience Hamilton.”
Hamilton is the story of America’s Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the West Indies who became George Washington’s right-hand man during the Revolutionary War and helped shape the very foundations of the America we know today. The score blends hip-hop, jazz, blues, rap, R&B and Broadway – the story of America then, as told by America now.
With book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, direction by Thomas Kail, choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and musical supervision and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire, Hamilton is based on Ron Chernow’s biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
Winner of 11 Tony Awards including Best Musical, the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, Hamilton first opened on Broadway in 2015 where it smashed box office records and continues its run at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.