Olivier-Winning Shockheaded Peter to Hit NYC
Shockheaded Peter was created by Julian Bleach, Anthony Cairns, Graeme Gilmour, Tamzin Griffin and Jo Pocock. It is based on the dark children's stories of Heinrich Hoffmann's Strewwelpeter. The show features the music of The Tiger Lillies and is billed as a "junk opera." Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott direct.
The production began in the U.K. in 1998 and then embarked on a U.S. national tour, which included a stop at New York's New Victory Theater. That run earned the production Drama Desk Award nominations for Set Design for a Musical Julian Crouch and Graeme Gilmour, Costume Design Kevin Pollard and Unique Theatrical Experience.
Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote about the show: "As spoof theater goes, Shockheaded Peter is in its own, highly sophisticated league. A send-up of the cautionary 19th-century tales used to frighten children into behaving, the sort in which thumb-suckers soon find the offending appendages severed, this visual treat of a show is masterly in enjoying its poisoned cake and debunking it, too."