THE KING AND I

The multi-award-winning ★★★★★ Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I is now playing at London’s Dominion Theatre until 2 March, following its record-breaking season at The London Palladium and sell-out world tour. 

Last month’s press night attracted a star-studded line-up including Rachel Stevens, Prue Leith, David Seaman, Louis Theroux, Dan Walker, and Steph McGovern.

Starring the critically-acclaimed Helen George (Call the Midwife) in the ‘role of a lifetime’ as Anna, and Darren Lee who played the King on Broadway, don’t miss this ‘sumptuous’ (The Times) and ‘breath-taking’ (New York Times) production of this musical classic.

This strictly limited London season is now in its final weeks – this simply is the most gloriously romantic production, not to be missed.

Hear what our celebrity audience is saying about The King and I in the below video!

KISS ME, KATE

Olivier nominee Charlie Stemp and rising star Georgina Onuorah are set to captivate audiences this summer as they co-star in the much-loved quintessential Cole Porter musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate. They will join multi-award-winning actor Adrian Dunbar, making his musical theatre debut and Tony Award winner and Broadway Royalty Stephanie J. Block, making her West End debut, for a strictly limited 15-week season at London’s Barbican Theatre from 4 June.

PANTO SEASON – IT’S BEHIND US!

Steve Boden from Imagine Theatre calls it a wrap on panto season!…

Well, the 2023 panto season is almost entirely “behind us” and we’re into a month of debriefs, evaluations and strategic planning around the 2024 season. There are still a number of non-TE venues that we’re trying to extract settlement info from and at Imagine HQ, the accounts team under the guidance of Sarah Boden and Rob Brown are pulling together the reconciliation of the season which saw tens of thousands of transactions take place over the course of six weeks. Alongside that, we’re starting the integration process into the TE family so it continues to be an incredibly busy time.

The production and operations teams are engaged in the enormous job of scheduling the maintenance and upgrades to the scenic and wardrobe infrastructure. Over 40 panto sets will be assessed and appropriate maintenance scheduled, along with tens of thousands of costume and prop pieces. The post season laundry pile is diminishing and will hopefully be completed before long.

The creative leads are also working on the strategy and development of our 2024/25 season, with potentially 24 simultaneous Christmas productions running – our biggest season ever. We are also continuing to roll out new titles into our portfolio, with planning under way for brand new productions of Robin Hood and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And we’re developing two new panto’s using the award-winning digital infrastructure that has been so positively received by audiences over recent years.  More news to follow on that in later issues of Ensemble.

To wrap up, we extend our grateful thanks to the many hundreds of freelance staff who worked with us over the 2023 panto season. In just 6 weeks and across 1014 performances, Team Imagine entertained well over half a million customers, grossing almost £11million of box office receipts. We can be rightly proud of the whole team and supporting networks across the whole group for this great achievement. Congratulations and thank you to everyone across the group who worked tirelessly over the season on all festive shows. Onwards to panto season 2024!