West End Best Friend

View Original

English language premiere of major new musical MARIE CURIE announced

As she arrives from her native home in Poland to study at Sorbonne University in Paris, young Marie Sklodowska is certain she can make a name for herself and change the course of science. She discovers radium, a new chemical element, with her husband Pierre Curie, and she’s lauded with the Nobel Prize. But she is faced with an overwhelming moral dilemma. As Marie discovers the lifesaving potential of radium to cure cancer, factory workers handling the glowing substance are succumbing to the insidious grip of radium poisoning. As a woman with society against her, can she wrestle with both the potential and danger of her discovery – and what is she if radium’s dangers overshadow its possibilities?

A story of life and death, Marie Curie has already captivated audiences in Korea and Japan with its sweeping score by Seeun Choun and book by Jongyoon Cho, and is now brought to London audiences for the first time in a stirring original production directed by Sarah Meadows (Ride).

Marie Curie premiered in South Korea in 2020 at the Chungmu Art Center. A live performance was broadcast, watched by 790,000 people. The show returned to Hongik Art Center Grand Theater, winning the Grand Prize, Best Book, Best Music, Best Director, and Best Producer at the 5th Korea Musical Awards. In 2023/24 Marie Curie opened its third season touring to six cities across South Korea. In Korea it was acclaimed for its cinematic quality and proved incredibly popular - watched in theatres by a cumulative total of 100,000 people.

The production will feature English book adaptation by Tom Ramsey, English lyric adaptation by Emma Fraser, literal transaltion by Ahreumbi Rew, musical direction by Emma Fraser, choreography by Joanna Goodwin, sound design by Andrew Johnson and Casting by Jane Deitch, with casting to be announced at a later date.

The production will be running at The Charing Cross Theatre from Saturday 1 June - Sunday 28 July 2024.

For more information, click here.