Opera Australia Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini and theatre producer John Frost have announced the principal cast for the 2014 revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I, co-produced by the Gordon Frost Organisation and Opera Australia

Following their success playing opposite each other in South Pacific, Lisa McCune and Teddy Tahu Rhodes will co-star in the Sydney and Brisbane seasons of the Tony Award-winning Australian production,

Four-time Gold Logie winner Lisa McCune plays English governess Anna Leonowens, alongside internationally acclaimed opera singer Teddy Tahu Rhodes, who takes on his second musical theatre role as the King of Siam, while Jason Scott Lee will play the role of the King opposite McCune in Melbourne (Lou Diamond Phillips has taken over the role in Melbourne due to an injury to Jason Scott Lee).

The King and I also stars Chinese-born Australian opera singer Shu-Cheen Yu as Lady Thiang and Adrian Li Donni as Lun Tha. Young soprano Jenny Liu will play the slave girl Tuptim, a gift to the King from the ruler of Burma, Marty Rhone will play the featured role of The Kralahome and in the roles of British Diplomat Sir Edward Ramsey and Captain Orton will be John Adam (The School For Wives, Frost/Nixon).

Lisa McCune and Teddy Tahu Rhodes in conversation

Lisa McCune was partly responsible for the decision to revive The King and I, the Melbourne launch heard, when she told John Frost during South Pacific that she would love to do something with a spectacular really big dress. They don’t come much bigger than Mrs Anna’s crinoline.

Jason Scott Lee (pictured right)  previously played the role of the King in Frost’s production at the London Palladium in 2000-2001 opposite Elaine Paige.

Born in Los Angeles, Lee was raised in Hawaii and is of Chinese-Hawaiian descent. Although best known for his feature film roles, including the title role in the biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Map of the Human Heart, Rapa Nui, Soldier and Lilo and Stitch, he has had an extensive stage career. Lee made his operatic debut in the non-singing role of Pasha Selim in Hawaii Opera Theatre's production of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio in Honolulu in 2009.

“I’m thrilled that Jason has a gap in his schedule which enables him to join the production for the Melbourne season,” John Frost says. “Jason made a wonderful King in this production at the London Palladium in 2000 and received rave reviews. He brought a real authority to the role and sang it beautifully. I know Melbourne will be enchanted by Jason Scott Lee and The King and I.”

Jason concedes that he has only been to Australia once before…to shoot parts of a movie in Sydney and Wollongong….but friends have told him about Melbourne and it’s very exciting. At the launch in Melbourne, Lisa McCune has not met her Melbourne co-star yet but is excited by the prospect. “You have a different language with every person you work with,” she says, “So I’m looking forward to discovering that language with Jason. I hear that he’s just marvellous in the role.

At the launch for the Melbourne season John Frost told the crowd at the Melbourne launch that when he flew to Hollywood to see Jason Scott Lee for the London production he ended up going to the actor’s home and auditioning him in his garage, where Jason sang part of “Is a puzzlement” and that was all Frost needed to hear.

Chinese-born Australian opera singer Shu-Cheen Yu (pictured left) plays Lady Thiang, the King’s chief wife, returning to the production 23 years after playing the young Burmese slave girl Tuptim in 1991.

Adrian Li Donni (pictured below) is Lun Tha, the Burmese scholar and envoy who is secretly in love with Tuptim, a role he played for the Production Company in Melbourne in 2010 and in the US the year before that.

“I’m thrilled with the wonderful cast we’ve assembled for The King and I,” said John Frost. “I know this production will be as magnificent as the original, which is remembered as a milestone in Australian theatrical history. It brings me great joy to be able to return to this special production with Opera Australia following our huge success with South Pacific.”

“Teddy and Lisa coming together worked wonderfully well in South Pacific and it seemed to us that we should capitalise on that success and continue with it. They were both terrific in South Pacific and the audience really responded to them as I’m sure they will in The King and I,” said Lyndon Terracini.

The King and I was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s fifth musical together and is considered one of the jewels in their crown. It was based on Margaret Landon’s 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam, which took its inspiration from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, a British governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam (now Thailand) in the early 1860s.

The score includes “I Whistle a Happy Tune”, “Getting to Know You”, “Shall We Dance?” and “Hello, Young Lovers”. 

A hit on Broadway in 1951, where it starred Gertrude Lawrence (who died during the season) and Yul Brynner, the show ran for three years before touring. The first London production opened in 1953, enjoying similar success. In 1956 it became a film starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner who won an Academy Award for his performance. 

At the Melbourne launch of the 2014 revival of his Tony Award winning production, Producer John Frost proved to be a showman in the court jester mould, as well as one of the smartest producers on the planet, according to Stage Whispers' Coral Drouyn.

“When I was about six,” he told the audience of press and Ticketmaster party organisers, “My parents took me to the Drive-In in Adelaide. The film was The King and I with Deborah Kerr and Yul Bryner. I was so overwhelmed by that red dress with the huge skirt I knew I wanted to produce the show some-day.” Mr Frost might simply be manipulating us with that story,   but it doesn’t matter one bit, because he has produced it, in Australia, on Broadway – where the production won four Tony awards, and in London’s West End – and the forthcoming Australian production will surely be the grandest of them all.

John Frost’s Australian production premiered at the Adelaide Festival Theatre in 1991. Directed by West End director Christopher Renshaw and starring Hayley Mills as Anna, it played to sell out houses around the country. In 1996, the production went on to win four Tony Awards on Broadway: Best Revival of a Musical, Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical (Donna Murphy), Best Scenic Design (Brian Thomson) and Best Costume Design (Roger Kirk). The Broadway season was followed by a US tour. In 2000, the production opened at the London Palladium with Elaine Paige as Anna where it played for nearly two years before embarking on a UK tour. 

Christopher Renshaw will return to Australia next year to revive the production, with its Thai-inspired set design by Brian Thomson, costumes by Roger Kirk and lighting by Nigel Levings. Susan Kikuchi will recreate the original Jerome Robbins choreography as well as the choreography of her mother Yuriko who appeared in the 1951 Broadway production and the 1956 film. 

John Frost has revealed that he thought that he had kept the sets for the Broadway production, and indeed the West End production…but couldn’t find them anywhere. So everything is being reproduced including Roger Kirk’s fabulous Tony award winning costume designs. Brian Thomson’s set will be remade in its entirety.

President and Executive Director of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, Ted Chapin said: “John Frost's production of The King And I is a classic example of taking a theatrical risk – a risk that ended up paying off better than anyone could have imagined. John's resume didn't necessarily warrant him being handed the rights to one of Rodgers & Hammerstein's best shows, but he was enthusiastic and spirited – characteristics I am happy to say he still possesses today – and persuasive.  Seeing the production in Melbourne was one of the most exciting nights of my life, and that started the worldwide roll-out which, of course, included a triumphant run on Broadway. I am so looking forward to seeing it again, and Opera Australia is the perfect modern partner.” 

The King and I opens in Brisbane at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in April 2014, then moves to the Princess Theatre, Melbourne in June, followed by a Sydney season at the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House in September.

www.thekingandimusical.com.au

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Lyric Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane

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