Posted on July 24, 2007 at 8:41 pm

It’s so cool, people. Lara Pulver (who starred in The Last Five Years at the Menier Chocolate Factory last year) and Jayne Wisener (who’s playing Johanna in the Sweeney Todd movie) and Shaun Escoffery (who’s basically a rock star, for God’s sake) and opera star Steven Page, led by a really exciting newcomer, Bertie Carvel. I’m heading over in two weeks to start rehearsal, and I couldn’t be more excited about it!

Here, go read about it.

Full Casting Announced for Donmar Parade
By John Nathan
19 Jul 2007

Full casting has been announced for the London premiere of Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s Tony-winning musical Parade, which opens at the Donmar Sept. 24 following previews that begin Sept. 14.

The production marks the directorial debut of choreographer Rob Ashford, who was responsible for the dancing in the recent West End revivals of Guys and Dolls and Evita, both directed by Donmar artistic director Michael Grandage.

Parade is based on the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory owner falsely convicted of murdering a girl in Atlanta in 1913. The London cast will see Bertie Carvel (The Man of Mode, The Life of Galileo) make his musical debut as Leo, and Lara Pulver, who starred in the Menier Chocolate Factory production of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years, take on the role of Leo’s wife Lucille.

The cast will also feature Helen Anker (On The Town); Mark Bonnar (Philistines); Norman Bowman (Guys and Dolls); Shaun Escoffery (Les Miserables); Joanna Kirkland (The Woman in White); Gary Milner (Evita); Steven Page (Sweeney Todd); Malinda Parris (Caroline, or Change); drama school graduate Stuart Matthew Price; Zoe Rainey (Guys and Dolls); Celia Mei Rubin (Guys and Dolls); Stephen Webb (Guys and Dolls) and Jayne Wisener in her stage debut. Parade received its world premiere at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater in 1998 under the direction of Harold Prince. The show received nine Tony Award nominations. Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry won Tonys for Best Score and Best Book, respectively.

In 1996 Uhry also won a Tony for his play The Last Night of Ballyhoo and an Oscar for the film version of his Off-Broadway Pulitzer-winning play Driving Miss Daisy.

Jason Robert Brown’s work includes the song cycle Songs For a New World. It is expected that his latest musical 13, which received its world premiere at Los Angeles’s Mark Taper Forum in January, will arrive in New York in 2008.

Design for Parade, which is booking until Nov. 24, is by Christopher Oram. The musical director is Thomas Murray, and the new orchestrations are by David Cullen. For more information visit www.donmarwarehouse.com.