ROALD DAHL's most treasured tale is coming to the land where sweet dreams come true- Broadway- in a delicious new musical! Willy Wonka, world famous inventor of the Everlasting Gobstopper, has just made an astonishing announcement. His marvelous- and mysterious- factory is opening its gates... to a lucky few. It's a world of pure imagination.
And who better to conjure up this confectionary wonder than three-time Tony Award-winning director JACK O'BRIEN, the Grammy and Tony-winning songwriters of Hairspray, MARC SHAIMAN and SCOTT WITTMAN, and internationally acclaimed playwright DAVID GRIEG. Audiences around the world have long adored the best-selling book and films, but none have experienced the magic of Wonka quite like this- until now.
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY The New Musical: It must be believed to be seen.
For a musical about the wonder of pure imagination, 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' is bizarrely lacking in it. The show does have Christian Borle as Willy Wonka, the mysterious chocolate-making genius created by Roald Dahl in 1964, then indelibly embodied by Gene Wilder in the 1971 movie and (a bit less indelibly) Johnny Depp on screen in 2005. Alas, especially in the long and slow first act, it's almost painful to watch Borle, a master of endearing virtuosity, work so hard to sell charm that simply isn't in the script, the music and too much of the staging.
There's enough on-stage pizzazz to keep the pre-teens charged and cheering at the story of chocolate-loving Charlie hoping to tour Willy Wonka's mysterious factory on a hard-to-come-by golden ticket. This recommendation is in large part due to Dahl's understanding that the under-12 contingent gets a big kick out of seeing their fictional peers behaving badly. It's also in large part due to Mark Thompson's imaginative sets that include all sorts of comically menacing apparatus and comically menacing out-sized animals.
2013 | West End |
West End Original Production West End |
2017 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2018 | US Tour |
First National Tour US Tour |
2021 | US Tour |
Non-Equity Tour US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2017 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Puppet Design | Basil Twist |
2017 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Christian Borle |
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