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The Book Thief musical announces full cast for its return
Complete casting has been revealed for the upcoming new production of The Book Thief, which returns following its initial spell in Bolton last year.
The show, based on Markus Zusak’s hit novel of the same name, will play at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry before a follow-up spell at Curve in Leicester. It has a book by Jodi Picoult and Timothy Allen McDonald and music and lyrics by Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, and was nominated for Best Regional Production at the 23rd Annual WhatsOnStage Awards.
Telling the story of an illiterate girl who steals an abandoned book in 1930s Germany, the stage version of Zusak’s best-seller will star Obioma Ugoala (Frozen the Musical) as Narrator, Mina Anwar (The Sarah Jane Adventures) as Rosa Hubermann, Jack Lord (West Side Story) as Hans Hubermann and Daniel Krikler (The Secret Life Of Bees) as Max Vandenburg.
Joining them are Storytellers Matthew Caputo (Hamilton) as Referee, Katy Clayton (The Band) as Liesel’s Mother, Oonagh Cox (Matilda: The Musical) as Nurse, Mark Dugdale (Les Miserables) as Alex Steiner, Michał Horowicz (The Band’s Visit) as Max’s Mother, Thomas-Lee Kidd (Beauty and the Beast) as Mayor Hermann, Anu Ogunmefun (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) as a swing, Simon Oskarsson (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) as a swing, Corinna Powlesland (Grease) as Social Worker, Purvi Parmar (The Jungle Book) as Barbara Steiner, Wendy Somerville (Billy Elliot) as Ilsa Hermann, Edwin Ray (Chicago) as Walter Kugler, Lee V G (Only Fools and Horses: The Musical) as Gravedigger and Russell Wilcox (The Producers) as Wolfgang Edel.
The character of the young Liesel Meminger will be played by Tilly-Raye Bayer (Frozen The Musical), Mollie Casserley (The Sound of Music) and Eirini Louskou (Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), while Rudy Steiner will be played by Thommy Bailey Vine (Matilda: The Musical), Preston Cropp (professional debut) and Oliver Gordon (Newsies).
The production is directed by Lotte Wakeham (artistic director of the Octagon Theatre), with choreography by Tom Jackson Greaves (Rent), orchestrations, arrangements, musical supervision and musical direction by Matthew Malone (Peter Pan), set and costume design by Good Teeth (Little Shop of Horrors), lighting design by Nic Farman (Allegiance), sound design by Andy Graham (The Wizard of Oz), video design by Dick Straker (A Monster Calls), puppet design by Sam Wilde (The Fir Tree), casting by Abby Galvin for Jessica Ronane Casting (The Glass Menagerie) and production management by Andy Fox and Lee Batty for Setting Line Production Management (Newsies).
The Book Thief is produced by Deus Ex Machina Productions (Ride: A New Musical) with Writer’s Cage, Christopher Ketner, and Andrew Paradis, in association with Belgrade, Coventry.
The show will open first at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry (running from 11 to 16 September) ahead of a spell at Curve in Leicester from 29 September to 14 October. Future plans for the production are to be revealed in due course.
