Bikini Bottom's favorite pineapple under the sea is headed overseas. The SpongeBob Musical, produced on Broadway as SpongeBob SquarePants, will tour the U.K. and Ireland beginning April 5 in Southampton's Mayflower Theatre.
The tour will subsequently play Birmingham, Bradford, Oxford, Dublin, Manchester, Sheffield, Belfast, Cardiff, Blackpool, Peterborough, Wolverhampton, Norwich, Leicester, and Aberdeen before spending five weeks over the summer at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and, subsequently, Plymouth.
The cast will be led by Gareth Gates as Squidward, RuPaul's Drag Race UK star Divina de Campo as Sheldon J. Plankton, Lewis Cornay as SpongeBob, Irfan Damani as Patrick, Chrissie Bhima as Sandy, Richard J Hunt as Mr. Krabs, Sarah Freer as Pearl, Eloise Davies as Mrs. Puff, Hannah Lowther as Karen, and Rebecca Lisewski as Mayor. Gates will not perform at all venues.
The ensemble includes Sam Beveridge, Farirayi Garaba, Jeremiah Olaleye, Eleanor Turiansky, Rhys Batten, and Reece Kerridge.
Check out the company in rehearsal below:
The Company of The SpongeBob Musical
Lewis Cornay, Irfan, and Sarah Freer
Richard J Hunt, Hannah Lowther, and Farirayi Garaba
Gareth Gates
Lewis Cornay
Hannah Lowther, Eloise Davies, and Rebecca Lisewski
Set Design of The SpongeBob Musical UK Tour
Based on the Nickelodeon series by Stephen Hillenburg, The SpongeBob Musical is conceived by Tina Landau and features a book by Kyle Jarrow.
The score comprises original songs written by Yolanda Adams, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Sara Bareilles, Jonathan Coulton, Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, The Flaming Lips, Lady A, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T’s, They Might Be Giants, and T.I., with additional songs by David Bowie, Tom Kenny, and Andy Paley. Coulton also provided additional lyrics, and additional music is by Tom Kitt.
Tara Overfield Wilkinson will direct with choreography by Fabian Aloise, design by Steve Howell, musical supervision by Mark Crossland, musical direction by Marcus Carter-Adams, costume design by Sarah Mercade, lighting and video design by Ben Bull, sound design by Ben Harrison, costume and wig supervision by Megan Rarity, associate choreography by Paris Green, and casting by Harry Blumenau Casting with general management provided by Selladoor Worldwide.
The work opened at Broadway's Palace Theatre December 4, 2017, following a world-premiere, out-of-town run in Chicago in summer 2016. Directed by Landau, the original production closed in 2018 as preparations began to lift the entire Palace Theatre for new retail space. Much of the original cast took the production to Theatre Royal in Plymouth to film The SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage!, which premiered on Nickelodeon in 2019. The new U.K. tour will return to Theatre Royal August 30–September 2.
For a full itinerary and tickets, visit SpongeBobStage.com.
