Backstage With...

Two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Oremus talks about creating some of the biggest musicals of the last two decades, conducting the orchestra for the Frozen movies, and arranging and conducting Lady Gaga's performance at the Academy Awards.

Stephen's credits include:

On Broadway and worldwide: As Music Supervisor/Arranger and/or Orchestrator: Disney’s Frozen; Kinky Boots (Tony Award for Best Orchestrations; Grammy Award); The Book of Mormon (Tony & Drama Desk Awards-Best Orchestrations; Grammy Award); 9 to 5; All Shook Up; Avenue Q; Wicked. Off-Broadway: The Wild Party, tick, tick…BOOM!; Film: Vocal arranger/conductor for Frozen & Frozen 2; String arrangements/conductor for Lady Gaga’s “I’ll Never Love Again” (A Star Is Born) and "Til It Happens to You” (The Hunting Ground). Music Director for Rufus Wainwright’s for Rufus Does Judy, TV: Music director of The 87th Academy Awards, The Wiz Live (NBC), Rent Live (FOX).

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The Olivier award-winning star of Hamilton talks about what it was really like in The Room Where It Happened.

Giles's book, Hamilton & Me: An Actor's Journal, is available now.

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Reflecting on the reopening night of Come From Away in the West End.

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It sure feels good to be back in your podcast feed. Are you ready for a new series of conversations with your favourite theatre people?

First up is Kayi Ushe who's preparing to play Simba in The Lion King when the show reopens in the West End. You may have seen him as Lola on the UK tour of Kinky Boots or during his four-year stint in The Book of Mormon.

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Daisy Maywood (The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Company, A Chorus Line) guest hosts this episode of the podcast with Mikey Worrall.

This is the final episode of series five. We'll be back in 2021 with more actors and creatives from your favourite shows.

(This episode was recorded in September 2020 before the second lockdown in England. Any references to recent gym sessions and family visits were completely legal at the time.)

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Gavin Spokes was playing King George III in the London production of Hamilton when the West End went dark the week before the UK went into lockdown in March.

You might have recently seen him wrestling with Mel Giedroyc as Harry in Marianne Elliot’s West End revival of Company, working his way up to a million pounds as the Major in James Graham’s Quiz, or as pollster Andrew Cooper in Channel 4’s Brexit: The Uncivil War.

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Susie McKenna was creative director at Hackney Empire for seven years and wrote, produced and sometimes starred in its pantomimes for 22 years.

She is now an associate director at Kiln Theatre, in north west London. 

Susie's many stage credits include Follies, Cats, The Witches of Eastwick, Woman in White, Ragtime, and Chicago.

When the pandemic took hold, Susie was over in New York where her wife - three-time Olivier award winning actress Sharon D. Clarke - was about to begin previews in the title role in Caroline or Change on Broadway.

We recorded this conversation back in September while Susie was staying at her house in Spain.

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Kiruna Stamell was working as an extra on the film Moulin Rouge in Australia twenty years ago when the director created the part of La Petite Princess just for her.

She used her pay check to come to the UK where she’s worked across television, film and theatre.

At the start of this year she was in the Jamie Lloyd Company production of Cyrano de Bergerac at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End, which won the Olivier award for Best Revival at the weekend. She was meant to be part of the show’s New York transfer but it was cancelled because of the pandemic.

Instead, she found herself shielding at home in the UK with her husband Gareth, and creating a web series for children called Pirate and Parrot.

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Gavin Lee is an Drama Desk award winner, Olivier award nominee, and two-time Tony nominee. 

He's best known for creating the role of Bert in the original West End, Broadway and U.S. touring productions of Mary Poppins, and originating the role of Squidward in SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical on Broadway. 

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Chances are you've seen Melanie La Barrie in at least one show in the last 20 years.

She's developed and appeared in a number of shows including the original productions of Mary Poppins, Matilda and & Juliet. She also played Ursula in the London pre-Broadway workshop of The Little Mermaid and on top of all of that somehow found time to complete full contracts in Les Miserables and Wicked. 

Prior to lockdown, Melanie was playing Nurse in & Juliet at the Shaftesbury Theatre, a role she'll return to when the show reopens in 2021.

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You can send Mikey your guest requests and questions on Twitter and Instagram, or email [email protected].

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