Miss Saigon to Return to London’s West End in May 2014

Ready the helicopter! Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s Miss Saigon will return to London’s West End just in time for its 25th anniversary. The production will begin performances in May 2014 at the Prince Edward Theatre. Casting for the revival has not yet been announced.

“I find it hard to believe that it is already 25 years since I first premiered Miss Saigon in London, where it became the greatest success ever in the long history of the Drury Lane Theatre and went on to be a phenomenal success around the world,” said producer Cameron Mackintosh in a statement. “Of all my shows, Miss Saigon is probably the one I have the most requests to bring back. For some years I have been waiting for the perfect theater to house the new production.”

Laurence Connor will direct, with musical staging by Bob Avian (who staged the original West End production) and additional choreography by Geoffrey Garratt. The creative team includes production design by Totie Driver and Matt Kinley from an original concept by Adrian Vaux, costume design by Andreane Neofitou, orchestrations by Williams David Brohn, lighting design by Bruno Poet and sound design by Mick Potter.

The epic musical premiered in London in 1989 and ran for 4,264 performances at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The Broadway production opened in 1991 and closed in January 2001 after 4,092 performances. The show has been performed in 28 countries and 15 different languages, and has been seen by over 35 million people worldwide.

Mackintosh’s planned production is a “completely re-imagined physical production” and includes a new song entitled “Maybe,” a second act ballad which will make its debut for English audiences.

Set in 1975 during the final days of the American occupation of Saigon, Miss Saigon chronicles the love story that blossoms between a disenchanted American GI and a 17-year-old Vietnamese girl who works as a bar girl in a sleazy Saigon night club.