Over The Rainbow – The Wizard Of Oz – London Musical
Posts tagged Sophie Evans
Michael Crawford is The Wizard of Oz
Sep 24th
It’s been announced that Michael Crawford will play the Wizard in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of The Wizard of Oz in London next year, 2011.
“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
The Wizard of Oz Dorothy Contenders Updates
Sep 5th
The Wizard of Oz Dorothy Contenders
Whilst The Wizard of Oz waits until December to begin rehearsals with Danielle Hope as Dorothy, the public’s eventual favourite, an interesting picture is building up of the various activities from news surfacing from the rest of the Over The Rainbow Contestants. So if you were wondering, “Where are They Now?” Let’s take a look :
Sophie Evans
Sophie Evans, the runner up to Danielle will be Dorothy after all, she gets to play understudy for Danielle Hope’s holidays and also every Tuesday night at The London Palladium. Sophie has had some high profile appearances in Wales, particularly when the alternate Dorothy role was announced at the Cardiff Millennium Centre, at the big weekend festival in Pontypridd and helping to promote a new ice cream venture for the valleys.
Sophie Evans Will be Alternate Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
Sophie is also joining some of her fellow Dorothies at the Arts Educational School (AES), on a musical theatre training course as funded by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Lauren Samuels
Lauren Samuels who came third, was the first Dorothy to appear on the West End Stage as a leading lady when she snagged the lead role as Sandy in Grease and she’s been working hard at it every night and twice on Saturdays since July. Well done Lauren!
Lauren Samuels in Grease
Steph Fearon
Steph Fearon rushed straight into a London theatre role in Smokey Joe’s Cafe at the tiny Landor Theatre off West End in South London. The show and Steph have met with much critical approval and there’s a good chance it will transfer sometime after finishing this week. Meanwhile Steph is going to be in “Wizz” a kind of motown version of “The Wizard of Oz” in Milton Keynes.
Stephanie Davis
Stephanie Davis was offered some musicals but chose to take up a regular part on Channel Four TV as a new character in Hollyoaks, her favourite TV soap. Stephanie plays 15-year-old Sinead O’Connor on Hollyoaks, part of a new family called the O’Connors.
Jessica Robinson
Jessica Robinson was called up to stand in for Steph Fearon in Smokey Joe’s Cafe for a few nights while Steph had an operation on her hand. Jessica has also moved down to London and will be attending the Arts Educational School alongside Danielle Hope and Sophie Evans.
Jenny Douglas
Jenny Douglas will be playing the prestigious part of ‘Meat’ in the touring version of ‘We Will Rock You‘
Emilie Fleming
As the Wild Card Dorothy, Emilie secured a place in the final eleven but, went out against Sophie Evans in week 4. Emile is now training at the Guildford School of Acting.
Bronte Barbe
Bronte was an early favourite for the top five but left in week two after finding herself in the sing-off against Lauren Samuels. Bronte is currently studying at Mountview Academy.
Dani Rayner
will be playing Jasmine in Aladdin at the Liverpool Empire this Christmas! With Pamela Anderson and Les Dennis. 10th December-2nd January.
Amy Diamond
Amy Diamond has been cast in The Drowsy Chaperone so that’s another Dorothy in London, although not quite the West End.
Danielle Hope
While Danielle Hope waits to begin rehearsals for The Wizard of Oz in December, there is little else to report. She’s done a few chat show interviews and that kind of thing, finished off her exams, and has been going to see a lot of London theatre shows.
Danielle Hope is Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
Four Superstars, One Dorothy
May 16th
Four Dorothy contenders remain for just a few hours more, and then they will be reduced to three. All four girls who remain in the competition have star quality in many ways, each different, but only three can go through to the Over The Rainbow final next week with a chance to star in The Wizard of Oz in London’s West End starting in April 2011.
Danielle Hope
Danielle’s Performance on Saturday
Steph Fearon
Steph’s performance of Rule The World
Sophie Evans
Sophie’s Performance of Reflection
Lauren Samuels
Lauren’s performance of Heaven.
Dorothy Duets
Ins the first duet duel of the night, Sophie and Steph sang I’m Gonna Was That Man Right Out of My Hair, and then
Lauren and Danielle performed a duet version of Popular from the hit Oz musical, Wicked.
Jenny leaves #Dorothy
May 9th
Jenny Douglas Is Not Dorothy
Jenny Douglas from Scotland was the first casualty of the weekend’s double eviction special of Over The Rainbow. Jenny showed increased competence in her singing but failed the test of working with Toto the dog! Understandably perhaps, For Andrew Lloyd Webber, that was enough to rule out Jenny from being in The Wizard of OZ when it opens in London’s West End in March 2011.
Over The Rainbow started this week with a group rendition of the powerful musical theatre song “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. Normally a big solo number, it was slightly odd to hear this a little under performed by the six Dorothys but then it hadn’t really been explained that this was Musical Theatre week.
So firstly, Danielle sang “On My Own” from the musical, Les Miserables impeccably as always.
Then it was the turn of Jenny with her version of Send In The Clowns from the musical, A Little Night Music. By the way, has anybody else noticed that the musical phrase for Send in The Clowns is just like Love Never Dies? Jenny received a mixed response from the judges.
Jessica this week took on the Mary Poppins classic, Supercalifragilistic or rather in full, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as song which potentially leaves little for an individualist performer to build on but to my surprise, Jessica managed to to turn it into an entertaining music hall number. Who’d have thought it. Jessica deserves a place in the semi finals.
Lauren performed Being Alive from the Sondheim musical, “Company” and once again I felt, justfied staying in the show right up to the line.
Steph was given the well known song “Somewhere” from the musical West Side Story and rose to the occasion yet again by showing just how far she has improved in confidence with her new found variation in singing styles.
Sophie has managed to evade the sing offs recently, and once again she avoided the bottom two with a splendidly up tempo version of “I Enjoy Being A Girl” from Flower Drum Song by Rodgers and Hammerstein, a less well known musical based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Chinese American author C. Y. Lee.
In the end, Jenny found herself in the bottom two alongside Lauren Samuels. I don’t know what Lauren was doing there, but it’s a public vote so anything can happen. They had to sing a duet rendition of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, a song which I have never cared for, but whichthey managed to turn almost into a musical theatre piece.
Andrew Lloyd Webber then wasted no time in saving Lauren, citing Jenny’s failure to control Toto as the reason why she would have been too much of a risk on the Wizard Of Oz Stage.
Five Remaining Dorothy Contenders
So the five girls remaining are Lauren Samuels, Jessica Robinson, Danielle Hope, Sophie Evans and Steph Fearon, with one more due to be eliminated on Sunday’s show and then it’s semi-final next weekend.
Saturday Night’s double eviction part one show ended with the five doing a Wizard Of Oz medley starting with Follow The Yellow Brick Road and including Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, The Merry Old Land of Oz and If I Only Had A Brain.
Stephanie Davis is not Dorothy
May 3rd
Stephanie Davis not Dorothy
Stephanie Davis became the fifth Dorothy contender to be discounted from Over The Rainbow last night, a shocking result really, caused by the public voting two of the strongest performers into the sing off, Steph and Stephanie. So Andrew Lloyd Webber had the difficult job of choosing one of those two to survive, and he chose Steph from London, leaving Stephanie Davis to hand over the slippers and sit on the moon singing “Over the Rainbow”.
Stephanie the Liverpudlian had put in some blinding performance in previous weeks, especially with up tempo dance numbers but was landed with the difficult job of interpreting “Mr Bojangles” this week, and failed to really get to grips with this awkward song which has been covered by many well known singers over the years.
Safe for another week are now
Sophie Evans, 17, from Wales
Sophie was in the bottom two last week and favourite to have been knocked out yesterday, but survived another week thanks to the public phone voting. I’m afraid her luck can’t last much longer though.
Jessica Robinson
Jessica Robinson, 18, from Middlesborough
Jess doesn’t care anymore. She achieved a lifetime ambition by singing her favourite song “Cabaret” on prime time television last week so anything that happens from here on in is a bonus for her.
Steph Fearon
Steph Fearon, 21, from London was in the sing-off this week, so maybe isn’t getting the support she deserves from the capital. Steph has an irrepressible little grin which would look just great on Dorothy. Here she is attempting the Moulin Rouge version of “Diamonds are a girls best friend“
Lauren Samuels
Lauren Samuels, 22, from London
Lauren is one of the top contenders who started at a very high standard and then continues to show improvement in her performances week by week.
Jenny Douglas
Jenny Douglas, 18, from Scotland
Jenny has had to learn how to dance very quickly for this competition, and seemed to have been given a renewed confidence in herself from the visit to Mamma Mia, her first London musical. She’s still a bit clumsy though and bumped into the other girls twice I think during Saturday’s Over The Rainbow !
Danielle Hope
Danielle Hope, 17, from Manchester
Last in my list here, but after this week Danielle could well be first favourite to win the role of Dorothy. Just look at this video of Danielle really enjoying herself with “Mambo Italiano“
Next Week..
On next week’s Over The Rainbow we will say goodbye to not one but two Dorothys in a Double Elimination Special edition at 6:45 pm on BBC One Saturday May 8th.
7 Over The Rainbow Dorothys
Apr 26th
The Seven Remaining Dorothy Contenders
With Emilie, Dani, Bronte and Amy having been discounted from playing Dorothy in the new London production of Wizard of Oz, the seven remaining Dorothy contenders are Stephanie Davis, Lauren Samuels, Danielle Hope, Jessica Robinson, Steph Fearon, Jenny Douglas and Sophie Evans.
Danielle Hope
Danielle Hope, 17, from Manchester
Danielle performs Cry Me A River
Cry Me A River is truly one of the best songs you could hope for, but I wasn’t too keen on the orchestration of this one, nevertheless Danielle’s fantastic voice really does do it justice. This Dorothy contender has genuine star quality, the real thing.
Jenny Douglas
Jenny Douglas, 18, from Scotland
Jenny has endeared herself to us with her quirky performances and cute personality. I can imagine her as Dorothy, in fact I can imagine getting some cheap seats at the back of the upper circle for Wizard of Oz in London and still getting a great performance from Jenny.
Lauren Samuels
Lauren Samuels, 22, from London
Sophie Evans
Sophie Evans, 17, from Wales
I’m afraid Sophie must be the favourite for being dropped next week, but such is the high standard in this show this is still great to listen to.
Stephanie Davis
Stephanie Davis, 17, from Merseyside
Stephanie sings Nobody Does It Better.
Stephanie has a brilliant voice and must be one of the top contenders
Jessica Robinson
Jessica Robinson, 18, from Middlesborough
Along with Jenny, Jessica has the kind of facial expressions that can project to the back of a large theatre and therefore can be envisioned playing Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, no problem. In this case, the singing and dancing is all there too.
Jessica performs There Youll Be
Steph Fearon
Steph Fearon, 21, from London
Steph stands out for being a little shorter, an experienced, natural performer and well supported from South London! Sh started out with a full on R & B singimg style but has shown she can take the training and direction required for the West End stage where I’m sure she’ll end up. Not necessarily as Dorothy though.
Forum Comments