My mistake one show is Friday guys!!! Filming it today sorry

Danielle Hope is on The One Show on, Friday January 28th at 7.00pm. Danielle is of course in the middle of rehearsals playing Dorothy in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical The Wizard of Oz, which starts previews in just over a week’s time now! The first Wizard of Oz performance should be at the London Palladium on 7th February 2011.

The One Show visits Danielle Hope with Toto in her dressing room at the London Palladium. The One Show is on on BBC1 at 7:00 pm

Rehearsals start in six weeks time with previews starting on February 7th 2011.

Danielle Hope will be doing seven shows a week as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and is currently in training at the Arts Educational School.

London Palladium 1910- 2010 100 years of great entertainment

Danielle Hope was there of course, and spoke about her forthcoming part in the history of the London Palladium as Dorothy, leading role in The Wizard of Oz:

“Hello! and happy 100th birthday to the London Palladium. What an amazing afternoon. A wonderful group of people and such a great place to celebrate, I’m so proud  that I can be a part of it. There has been such tremendous history here, so far, and hopefully I shall make some more, all good I hope. So have a look at the cake, and Happy Birthday Palladium, cheers”

Following the excitement of BBC TV’s smash hit Over the Rainbow, we are delighted to announce a special gala performance of the family musical, The Wizard of Oz, coming to the London Palladium on Tuesday 15th of February 2011.

This enchanting adaptation of the much-loved classic has been completely reconceived for the stage by the award-winning creative team behind the recent revival of the Sound of Music. The new production contains all of your favourite songs from the Oscar winning movie score, all the characters and iconic moments, plus a few surprises along the way, including breathtaking scenery and a revolving stage, and some new songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

Spectators will get a chance to see Danielle Hope, the winner of Over the Rainbow who captured the hearts of the country, playing the role of Dorothy. Danielle will also be joined by Michael Crawford as the Wizard. Crawford is internationally renowned for originating the title role in The Phantom of the Opera and loved by millions for his role in the classic British sitcom, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.

via We’re off to see the Wizard of Oz Charity Gala… and Michael Crawford is the Wizard! « Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity.

Theatres for Theatres is an exciting three-year initiative to raise £4 million to make a dramatic difference to the lives of our young patients requiring specialist brain surgery. The initiative will help to fund two new state-of-the-art operating theatres to be used by the Neurosciences team. The theatres will be used to treat children with complex and often life-threatening neurological and craniofacial conditions.

Theatres for Theatres will create world-class facilities which could allow treatment of up to 20 per cent more children in the next ten years.

“I’ve been fortunate working with Andrew before so I thought there was no harm in trying again. We’re all very excited about the show”

Michael Crawford – Wizard of Oz

Michael Crawford has a long association with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s productions, having created the role of the Phantom in The Phantom Of The Opera, the most successful musical ever. He’s also well known to older readers as Frank Spencer from last century’s hit TV sit-com “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave Em”. Michael Crawford also originated the role of Count Fosco in ALW’s “The Woman in White”.

The Wizard is perhaps a minor male role in the film version of The Wizard of Oz alongside those of the Tin Man, the Lion and the Scarecrow when compared with the leading role of Dorothy which will of course be occupied by our own Danielle Hope and once a week by Sophie Evans. In the the London stage musical version of The Wizard of Oz however, it will have to be seen how much the role of the Wizard is adapted to make the most of Michael Crawford’s considerable talents.

I’ll play one of the hopefully supportive and important sidekicks, who is also important to the story. I think that there are six roles all on the side of being equal in terms of performance – the two Witches, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and of course the Wizard. They’re all important characters to support the story

On the story:

It’s a slightly different interpretation of the story and we are sort of developing our own character of the Wizard. He’s quite a craft character. He was played by Frank Morgan very successfully in the film so I’ve got a lot to live up to. I start rehearsals in December when I’ll find out what I look like with the make-up and the costumes. It’s not like a film, where you’ve got time to change, so you’ve got to use a little more imagination so that characters can evolve from one to another very quickly and so deceive the audience.

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has returned to L Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as source material and inspiration for his new interpretation, and the music features Harold Arlen’s original score from the film, including Over The Rainbow and Follow the Yellow Brick Road, plus several new songs composed together with Sir Tim Rice, the old winning partnership.

I’ve seen some lyrics that Tim has written for me and they are so complementary to Harold Arlen’s stuff and inkeeping with the piece that they don’t stand out as being from a different period

said Michael Crawford.

Here’s the classic Michael Crawford in his award winning role as the Phantom of The Opera with Sarah Brightman

Drew Barrymore

Barrymore has been developing the project for years, and at one point appeared set to play Dorothy’s great-great-granddaughter, who learns to use the ruby slippers’ power when the Wicked Witch unexpectedly returns to take over Oz and the earth. It’s unclear if Barrymore will still take the role or just direct.

Now “Surrender Dorothy” is just one out of five “Oz” films that have been reported as being in development recently, following the big box-office success of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.”

Possible films include “Oz the Great and Powerful,” a Disney project that would show how the Wizard came to Oz. There may also be a film version of “Wicked“, the musical prequel to Wizard of Oz. Wicked the musical has been fabulously successful on Broadway and in the London West End.

From June 1st Wales’ leading amateur theatre company, Orbit, celebrates its 41st year with the opening night of a week-long run of its own version of The Wizard of Oz at the New Theatre in Cardiff.

Dorothy is sung by Nicola Caldwell and the Wales Online reporter Dave Owens spoke to her about the role:

Nicola Caldwell:

I’m 22 years old, I come from Penarth and I’ve just qualified from university as a primary school teacher.
Probably the biggest role I’ve done is Les Miserables in London’s West End for the 20th anniversary, which was fantastic. They chose 3,000 kids under 18 to apply, I was 17 at the time, and had done a school edition of the show. Out of the 3,000 who auditioned and sent tapes off, 35 got in. And I was one of the lucky ones!

It’s every little girl’s dream, to play Dorothy, isn’t it, to wear the red ruby slippers and sing Over The Rainbow? It’s such an honour. It’s the archetypal dream role.

On the runner-up, Welsh girl Sophie Evans, and the winner, Danielle Hope?

Nicola:

Actually I liked the girl who finished third, Lauren Samuels. She was my favourite. She was really bubbly and very magnanimous and gracious when she went out.

The Wizard of Oz is showing at the New Theatre in Cardiff from 1st 5th June

Orbit Theatre

Wizard of Oz – Orbit Theatre Company

By L. FRANK BAUM
With Music and Lyrics of the MGM motion picture score
by HAROLD ARLEN and E.Y. HARBURG
Background Music by HERBERT STOTHART
Book Adaptation by JOHN KANE from the motion picture screenplay

Tuesday 1st to Saturday 5th June 2010
New Theatre
Park Place
Cardiff

Book Online via The New Theatre, Cardiff

Danielle is not guaranteed to play the following performances of Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium on:

Tuesdays.

The winner’s annual holidays have also been reserved as:

Week commencing 2nd May 2011
Week commencing 5th September 2011
Week commencing 12th September 2011

Of course nothing can really be guaranteed and in the event of illness etc the part of Dorothy will be played by an understudy but if you want the best possible chance of seeing Danielle Hope in the role then avoid booking Wizard f of Oz tickets or theatre breaks for a Tuesday or those three weeks in May and September next year.

Danielle Hope

One of the recent missions was about maintaining the Kansas accent and here you can see each of four contestants in a scene from Wizard of Oz that allows us to really evaluate their abilities as actors.

Now Andrew Lloyd Webber seemed to be bowled over by Danielle, so we get a clue here perhaps as to who he would like to see the public vote for tonight, but he also praises Lauren’s professionalism and wonders if she can pull out just a little bit more from inside her own emotion for us. Personally, I found the Danielle performance just a tad drawn out and over done, but there’s no doubt she would make a smashing Dorothy, as would any of them really.

Over the rainbow – Mission

After watching them each have a go at the real acting, who do you think comes out of this mission in the best position for tonight’s vote?