David Leveaux to Direct Iain Softley’s Backbeat in the West End

Tony Award nominee David Leveaux will direct Iain Softley and Stephen Jeffreys’ Backbeat, which will play the West End’s Duke of York’s Theatre, beginning performances September 26 in anticipation of an official opening on October 10. Paul Stacey will serve as musical director of the production.

The show is a stage adaptation Softley’s award-winning 1994 film about the early years of the Beatles and centers on the triangular relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe, the band’s original bassist and an accomplished painter, his best friend John Lennon, and Astrid Kirchherr, a beatnik German photographer who Sutcliffe fell in love with. Casting will be announced shortly.

Among the songs features in the production are such Beatles hits as “Twist & Shout,” “Rock & Roll Music,” “Long Tall Sally,” “Please Mr Postman,” and “Money.”‘

Leveaux’ s many Broadway credits include the recent revival of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, as well as The Real Thing, Jumpers, Nine, Fiddler on the Roof, Betrayal, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Anna Christie.

For more information and tickets, click here.