Tiger Bay the Musical’s leading lady cast for Cardiff premiere and tour with John Owen-Jones
Wales Millennium Centre is delighted to confirm that Royal Welsh College musical theatre graduate Vikki Bebb has been cast in a leading role in the Centre’s most significant production to date, Tiger Bay the Musical, created by a multi-award-winning team led by composer, Daf James, writer Michael Williams and director, Melly Still.
Vikki Bebb performs at RWCMD’s Gala for Dame Shirley Bassey
Following her outstanding performance during previews in Cape Town, Vikki from Abercynon, will join Musical legend John Owen-Jones to lead the cast for the world premiere in Cardiff. Vikki will play Rowena Pryddy, a shop girl from the Welsh Valleys, who journeys to the big city, finding love in her quest for a place in society.
The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama alumna impressed the musical’s creative team and cast so much that her co-star and Broadway actor, John Owen-Jones has invited her to join him on his home coming tour, Bring Him Home: A Collection of Musical Favourites this June.
Vikki in the Royal Welsh College’s production of Rent
Vikki, aged 26, said: “It is an absolute honour to play Rowena for the world premiere of this new musical in Cardiff and performing with John on his tour is a fantastic opportunity. I went to Cape Town looking to learn as much as I could from the extremely talented people around me, and being cast for Cardiff is beyond anything I expected.”
Award-winning and record breaking West End and Broadway performer John Owen-Jones, said: “The Bring Him Home tour will travel throughout Wales so it would be rude not to take Vikki along with me and showcase her amazing talent to a home audience before we perform together again in November.”
The world premiere of Tiger Bay the Musical is on Wednesday 15 November 2017 at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. Produced in association with Cape Town Opera, the musical takes us back to the early 1900s in old Butetown, the docklands and Cardiff city centre at an extraordinary turning point in history, when coal was king and the industry booming.
Vivien Care, Head of Musical Theatre, RWCMD said: “Vikki is a star in the making, a wonderful ambassador for our professional Musical Theatre training at Royal Welsh College and deserves her place on the Wales Millennium Centre stage. She wowed the crowds in Cape Town and we have no doubt she will do it again in Cardiff in November.”
The world premiere of Tiger Bay the Musical is on Wednesday 15 November 2017 at Wales Millennium Centre. Tickets are on sale now at www.tigerbaythemusical.com
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For interview opportunities and press enquiries please contact Vicki Spencer-Francis at Tiger Bay the Musical press office: tigerbaypr@wmc.org.uk / 02920 789 321.
Who is Rowena?
Rowena Pryddy is the daughter of a traditional mining family in the valleys, on a journey towards independence and true love, though her ideas about a woman’s role in society are laughed at by her family. Rowena does not enjoy her life as a ‘live-in shop girl’ at Morgan’s Department Store and believes that her new beau, dashing harbour master, Seamus O’Rourke, might be the start of a new life.
Rowena is drawn to the vibrant cosmopolitan community in Butetown and rails against the social and racial prejudices held by everyone above and below the canal bridge. Her suffrage ideals of self-determination and equality are tested when she falls in love with a South African man (Themba) and she must choose between her family and the man she loves, between her career in Cardiff and her activism in Butetown.
About Tiger Bay the Musical
Tiger Bay is a musical journey into the bawdy public houses and alleyways of old Butetown, Cardiff, Britain’s flamboyant multi-ethnic community at the dawn of the 20th Century.
Set to a rousing musical score, shop girls, coal miners, donkeymen, sailors, suffragettes, immigrants, and a lively gang of raggedy urchin Water Boys all believe that through hard work they too may prosper from King Coal. But when unionism imperils profits, the ambitious Harbour Master, the Bute Dock Company and the merchants of the Coal Exchange threaten their livelihoods and dreams of a brighter future.
High above them, in the Zodiac Room of Cardiff Castle, the Third Marquess of Bute, stares into his Crystal Gazing machine seeking answers from Shadowland to his own seemingly insurmountable troubles.
Tiger Bay is a Welsh family musical about courage, reconciliation and love in a rapidly changing world.
Cardiff, Wales Millennium Centre
Mon 13 November 7.30pm Preview
Tue 14 November 7:30pm Preview
Wed 15 November 7.30pm Press Night
Thu 16 November 7.30pm
Fri 17 November 7.30pm
Sat 18 November 2.30pm
7.30pm
Mon 20 November 7.30pm
Tue 21 November 7.30pm
Wed 22 November 7.30pm
Thu 23 November 2.30pm
7.30pm
Fri 24 November 7.30pm
Sat 25 November 2.30pm
7.30pm
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