An
article from Wayne Bryan, Producing Artistic Director, of Music Theatre of
Wichita as they prepare to produce the American premiere of Betty Blue Eyes. Betty Blue Eyes is a highly original and very funny new musical which opened on the West End in 2011, and is making its American debut this summer at Music Theatre of Wichita, July 24-28.
Set in 1947 England, when Princess Elizabeth’s forthcoming royal wedding is to be the cause for nationwide celebratory banquets, a meat-deprived village wages internal subterfuge to abscond with a prize pig named Betty.
With a clever libretto by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, Betty Blue Eyes is based on the Maggie Smith and Michael Palin film, A Private Function, screenplay by Alan Bennett. The tuneful new score is by NAMT Festival alumni George Stiles (Honk! and The Three Musketeers, both Fest '99) and Anthony Drewe (Honk!, Fest ‘99), whose other works include Just So and the new material in the stage version of Mary Poppins.
After the 1999 Festival presentation of Honk!, several NAMT theatres expressed an interest in producing it, including Music Theatre of Wichita. Our transatlantic communications with authors George and Anthony quickly blossomed into an international friendship. This was solidified when MTWichita, with the writers' blessings, produced and distributed the American Cast Album of Honk! in 2001.
George and Anthony, along with licensing house Music Theatre International, subsequently credited the well-received album as one of the show's best marketing tools. Hundreds of Honk! productions followed the Festival presentation and the release of the
