Xander Pang, Colin Ryan, Stephanie Zaharis, Telly Leung, more star in London run from July 30-September 12
Image courtesy of Neil Reading PR
© Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA, HoriPro
The staff for Frank Wildhorn’s Death Note the Musical, a stage version of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s supernatural manga Death Note, announced the full London cast on Tuesday.
The cast includes:
- Xander Pang as Light
- Colin Ryan as L
- Stephanie Zaharis as Misa Amane
- Telly Leung as Ryuk
- Grace Mouat as Rem
- Paolo Montalban as Soichiro Yagami
- Chloe Saracco as Jerasu
- Elise Buckley as Sayu
The musical will run for six weeks from July 30 to September 12 at London’s Barbican Centre. It will be performed in English.
The musical runs for two and a half hours, including a 20-minute interval/intermission, and has an age guidance rating of 12+. Frank Wildhorn, an American composer known for songs sung by Whitney Houston (“Where Do Broken Hearts Go?”) and Natalie Cole, is again scoring the Death Note musical. Stephen Whitson is directing the London performance. Other credits include designer Jon Bausor, choreographer Fabian Aloise, orchestrator and arranger Jason Howland, and additional lyrics by Morgan Reilly.
According to West End Best Friend’s website, this London version of the musical will feature a revised script and newly written songs. There are also plans to transfer the production to Broadway. West End Best Friend also specifies this is a full production. The musical previously had concert performances in London in 2023 at the London Palladium and Lyric Theatre.
©Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA, HoriPro
The musical had a new run last November at the Tokyo Tatemono Brillia Hall to commemorate its 10th anniversary.
The musical debuted in 2015 and had reruns in Japan in 2017 and in 2020. The musical also held a performance in London in 2023.
In >!–Tsugumi –>Ohba and original 2003-2006 supernatural suspense manga, teenager Light Yagami finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names. He begins a self-anointed crusade against the criminals of the world, and a cat-and-mouse game begins with the authorities and one idiosyncratic genius detective.
In addition to the 2006 television anime adaptation and tie-in specials, Death Note also received a Japanese live-action film adaptation in 2006, with a sequel titled Death Note: The Last Name, and a spinoff titled L change the WorLd in 2008. A live-action television series adaptation premiered in July 2015, and ended in September 2015. A new film titled Death Note: Light up the NEW world, described as a “forbidden sequel” to the first live-action film, opened in Japan in October 2016. Netflix released a live-action Death Note film by director Adam Wingard in August 2017.
Viz Media released the manga, previous Japanese live-action films, anime, and other tie-in projects in North America, and Crunchyroll streamed the live-action television series. Funimation licensed the Death Note, Death Note: The Last Name, and Death Note Light up the NEW world films and released the films on home video in January 2019.
A new Netflix Death Note live-action adaptation by Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer (Stranger Things) was announced in 2022.
Source: Email correspondence
