Disney Theatrical Group confirmed on Friday (Aug. 14) that the stage adaptation of The Greatest Showman will open at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in spring 2027. The announcement came during D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event at Honda Center in Anaheim, California, following a sold-out world premiere run earlier this year at Bristol Hippodrome.
Oliver Tompsett will star as P.T. Barnum, with Samantha Barks playing his wife, Charity Barnum. Rounding out the principal cast are Ben Joyce as Phillip Carlyle, Vajèn van den Bosch as Jenny Lind and Malinda Parris as Lettie Lutz. Disney Theatrical Group said additional casting will be revealed at a later date.
The musical is based on the 2017 film of the same name, which starred Hugh Jackman as Barnum in his rise from unemployment to founding what would become the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The film's soundtrack spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2018, featuring performances from Jackman, Barks, Zac Efron, Zendaya, Michelle Williams and Keala Settle. The song "This Is Me" won the Golden Globe for best original song that same year.
The West End staging will retain the film's best-known numbers — "The Greatest Show," "A Million Dreams," "Come Alive," "Rewrite the Stars," "Never Enough" and "This Is Me" — alongside new songs written specifically for the stage version. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who composed the film's original songs, are returning to write the stage score. Tim Federle is writing the book, and Casey Nicholaw is directing and choreographing the production, according to Variety.
Photo: Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
