The Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton musical The Boys in the Photograph
will be staged at the Civic Theatre as part of Johannesburg's 2010 Fifa
World Cup offerings.
The musical will be put on at the Civic's Nelson Mandela Theatre from
23 May to 8 August 2010, as one of the parallel events the city is organising
for the fans who are expected to converge on Johannesburg during the World
Cup.
Originally called The Beautiful Game, the award-winning musical was first
performed in London's West End in 2000. It focuses on a group of boys
growing up in an atmosphere of religious intolerance and hatred in Belfast
in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s. The plot centres on a football
team, made up of Catholic and Protestant youngsters, with a Catholic coach.
Political and religious violence overwhelms the team - some
become members of the IRA, in the process destroying their lives. The
story has relevance to apartheid South Africa and the racial hatred that
tore families apart.
In a formal event on Sunday evening, Joburg Executive Mayor Amos Masondo
announced the musical as one of the events running parallel to the World
Cup.
World-class offering
"This theatre event will provide an additional world-class offering
to both soccer lovers and theatre goers," Masondo said. "It
will further enhance global awareness of the rich culture of entertainment,
build cross-cultural relations and foster nation building."
Multi-award winning playwright Lloyd Webber, now a baron, is rewriting
the play together with comedian and author Elton because they felt that
the musical did not achieve its full potential, they told Toronto's The
Star newspaper in January.
"The beautiful game" was football great PelÊ's description of
the sport, and it led to the audience being confused about what to expect.
"People thought they were coming to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's soccer
musical, and it's no more about soccer than My Fair Lady is about flower
sellers," Elton told The Star. "It's about a team, a group of
young people. They could be playing anything. It really doesn't matter
what."
The rewritten musical will be put on in Toronto in April 2009 before it
comes to South Africa.
Local cast
Bernard Jay, the chief executive of the Civic Theatre, said he saw the
original musical in Hungary and was "delighted" to get it for
the Civic. The musical would have an entirely local cast and casting would
start soon.
"[Lloyd Webber] and [Elton] will be coming out here to teach kids
how to play soccer on stage," Jay said.
Jay will produce the musical, with Simon James and Claire Pacariz as associate
producers.
"This will deepen global recognition and ensure that South African
artists continue to be part of performing award-winning productions at
theatres abroad," Masondo said.
Lloyd Webber has written some of the world's most famous musicals, including
The Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Cats. Elton
has written and produced various episodes for the television series Blackadder,
The Thin Blue Line and The Young Ones, as well as the novels Stark and
Popcorn.
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