Joe is delighted to announce that he will be returning to New York in 2015 as musical director of Cush Jumbo's Josephine and I. Cush's award-winning debut play is due to see its New York premiere at the Public Theater.
Cush, who is currently starring alongside Hugh Jackman in a Broadway production of Jez Butterworth's The River, first performed the play at the Bush Theatre in London in 2013. The show's sell-out run saw her pick up the Evening Standard Award for Emerging Talent, as well as her second Olivier nomination. Joe is thrilled to be working with Cush once again. Tony Award nominee Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!, The Iron Lady) will return in her role as director.
18 October 2014
From New York to Paris...
It has been a busy summer for Joe - he has recently returned from New York, where he was performing with Jess Walker in a sell-out run of her one-woman show Pat Kirkwood is Angry. Not only was the show adored by Charles Isherwood of the New York Times, their recently recorded album, The Girl I Left Behind Me, has been nominated for a Broadway World Album Award (best new UK cast album). Back in the UK this autumn, Joe will be musical director of the Globe Theatre's annual Concert For Winter, and will be playing the accordion for the Charing Cross Theatre's new production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. See the Events page for more details.
16 March 2014
Spring Projects
Joe has recently embarked on a number of projects that will be receiving performances over the spring, ahead of his return to Brits Off Broadway 2014 in June. He is currently in rehearsals with renowned human rights theatre company ice&fire, working on their new play The Nine O'Clock Slot, a semi-promenade production taking place at the Red Gallery, Shoreditch. He has also completed a commission from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, to compose a new round in honour of Shakespeare's 450th birthday, and to open the 2014 Sam Wanamaker Festival in April. Then in May, he will be heading to the Brighton Fringe as musical director of Sphinx Theatre's new show A Berlin Kabaret, previewed at the Soho Theatre last September, which explores the work of Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler and their contemporaries. More details can be found here.
8 March 2014
Brits Off Broadway 2014 line-up announced
Following last year's critically acclaimed run of The Girl I Left Behind Me, Joe is set to team up with soprano Jess Walker and take New York by storm once again, this time with a show depicting the tumultuous life (both on and off stage) of wartime star Pat Kirkwood.
The show will run between 10 and 29 June, at the 59E59 Theaters, as part of the 2014 Brits Off Broadway Festival. For more information, check out the Events page.
5 January 2014
The Girl I Left Behind Me: Original Cast Recording out NOW
The new year has seen the release of the premiere commercial recording of The Girl I Left Behind Me on Original Cast Records. Jessica Walker's one-woman show received a New York Times Critics' Pick when she and Joe took it to 59E59 Theaters' Brits Off Broadway Festival in May 2013.
Click here to have a listen to extracts from the recording.
The album is on sale to download via Amazon in the UK and the USA, as well as through iTunes. The album is also available at CD Baby and Footlight in both CD and download format.
In their charming and poignant one woman show, Jessica Walker and Director/Co-Writer Neil Bartlett (with Joseph Atkins at the piano) create a tribute to the artistry and glamour of the often outrageous cross-dressing women of the British music hall and American variety stages, taking a remarkably contemporary look at what it means when a woman wears the trousers - on stage.
Ms. Walker tells the story of these often infamous entertainers and the curious area they occupied as performers; women playing men, obviously, but singing about the joys, the beauty and the sexuality of the female form as well. The show, which lasts just over an hour, chronicles the history of several of the women who embarked upon wildly successful show-biz careers by dressing up as men. Although the objective was not to fool the audience - as Walker notes: these performers always sang in their own voices - there was more than a bit of ambiguity as to the meaning of their work, and lingering suspicions about whether their onstage antics reflected their off-stage lives.
