KISS ME, KATE Opens on the West End at The Old Vic Tonight, Nov 20

Hannah Waddingham will play Lilli Vanessi/Kate: Her theatre credits include the West End producton of The Wizard of Oz for which she received the 2012 Whatsontage Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical, Into the Woods (Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park), A Little Night Music (Menier Chocolate Factory and West End) and Spamalot (Broadway and West End), receiving Olivier Award nominations for both productions, as well as West End productions of Grease, The Beautiful Game, for which she received a Critics’ Circle Award nomination, and Lautrec.

Trevor Nunn has been Artistic Director of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre. He has directed some of the most critically acclaimed and popular musical and Shakespearean productions in recent decades. His musical credits include Porgy and Bess, My Fair Lady, Anything Goes, The Woman in White, Les Misérables, Starlight Express and Cats. Other theatre credits include Flare Path, Rock ‘n’ Roll, King Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth. He has directed Richard II and Inherit the Wind for The Old Vic and his Chichester credits are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which transferred to the West End in 2011, and Cyrano de Bergerac.

Stephen Mear has choreographed She Loves Me (which he also directed), The Music Man, Funny Girl and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for Chichester. His West End credits include Mary Poppins, Hello, Dolly! and Crazy For You. Mear worked with Trevor Nunn on The National Theatre’s 2002 production of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes which transferred for an extended West End run.

The London performances are slated for tonight, 20 Nov 2012 – Sat 2 Mar 2013, with opening night on the 1st of December. Performances are Mon–Sat 7.30pm; Wed & Sat 2.30pm, with no matinee performance on Wed 21 Nov, no evening performances on Mon 24 December or Mon 31 December, and no performances on Tue 25 December or Tue 1 January. There are extra matinees at 2.30pm on Mon 24 December, Fri 28 December, Sun 30 December & Mon 31 December.

Tickets range from £11 to £58 with concessions available from www.oldvictheatre.com.