Beauty & Beast cast

Apr 30 2021 | By More

Casting for Playhouse dates of Beauty and the Beast

Casting has been announced for the UK tour of Disney’s “reimagined” Beauty and the Beast musical, booked in to the Playhouse for six weeks from October 21 to November 27 2021.

Courtney Stapleton will play Belle with Emmanuel Kojo as her Beast in the tour which sets out from Bristol at the end of August and visits Liverpool before coming to Edinburgh and then going on to Cardiff.

Courtney Stapleton and Emmanuel Kojo will star as Belle and Beast. Pic: Disney

Tickets are already on sale (click for details) for this newly re-imagined production which will including a new tap routine for Be Our Guest choroegraphed by David Chase. Belle’s iconic costume has also been updated and she will no longer sport an apron as part of her look.

Leading the cast, Courtney Stapleton has appeared in Six, Bat Out of Hell, Les Miserables and Mamma Mia in the West End. Emmanuel Kojo was Judd Fry in Oklahoma and Joe in Show Boat, both of which he was nominated for Best Supporting Performance at the UK Theatre Awards.

Kojo said: “I’m really looking forward to seeing and working with Courtney but also the entire cast and actually meeting them – not on Zoom but in person.”

Stapleton added: “Emmanuel and I know each other, we trained together but we haven’t seen each other since we left, so it’s been really lovely to reconnect with him and to go on this journey with him. I think is gonna to be really exciting!”

Further cast

Joining them will be Tony Award-nominee Gavin Lee (Mary Poppins) as Lumiere and Tom Senior (School of Rock) as the villainous Gaston. Sam Bailey, winner of series 10 of the X-Factor, will take on the role of Miss Potts, and Nigel Richards (Phantom of the Opera) will play Cogsworth.

Martin Ball (Mary Poppins) will play Belle’s father Maurice and Louis Stockil (Mamma Mia) will be Gaston’s right-hand man, Le Fou. Samantha Bingley (The Secret Garden) will play Madame de la Grande Bouche, Emma Caffrey (Singin’ in the Rain) Babette and Tony & Olivier-nominated Gavin Lee (Mary Poppins) will be Lumiere .

Most of the musical’s original creative team will be reunited for the production,  including set designer Stan Meyer, costume designer Ann Hould-Ward and lighting designer Natasha Katz. However director Rob Roth was dropped after an email in which he backed Scott Rudin was made public and original choreographer Matt West is stepping up to direct.

Beauty and the Beast has music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton. It is adapted from Walt Disney Pictures’ Academy Award-winning 1991 animated musical film of the same name.

Listing

Beauty and the Beast
Edinburgh Playhouse18 – 22 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA
Thu 21 Oct – Sat 27 Nov 2021
Evenings: Tue – Sat at 7:30pm (not Tue 23 Nov).
Matinees: Wed, Sat, Sun: 2:30pm
Extra mats: Fridays  22 Oct and 26 Nov. 2:30
Tickets and details: Book here

The original 1991 Disney animation and the 2017 film of the theatrical adaptation are available to buy on Amazon:

Beauty and the Beast on tour 2021:
Thurs 25 Aug – Sat 18 Sept Bristol
Hippodrome
Book online
Thurs 23 Sept – Sat 16 Oct Liverpool
Empire
Book online
Thurs 21 Oct – Sat 27 Nov Edinburgh
Playhouse
Book online
Thurs 9 Dec 2021 – Sat 15 Jan 2022 Cardiff
Wales Millennium Centre
Book online

ENDS

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