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PRESS RELEASE – Friday 12 April 2019 IMAGES CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE Twitter/ Facebook / Instagram / website #LivingDeadLondon

Aria Entertainment and Senbla, by special arrangement with Samuel French Ltd, present George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD™ LIVE Written by Christopher Bond, Dale Boyer and Trevor Martin Created by Christopher Harrison and Phil Pattison

▪ NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD LIVE™ EXTENDS TO 8 JUNE AT PLEASANCE, LONDON

▪ PRODUCTION IMAGES NOW AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD HERE

▪ THE PRODUCTION PLAYS HOMAGE TO THE 1968 FILM WITH A MONOCHROME SET AND DESIGN AND OFFERS AUDIENCES SEATING OPTIONS IN THE ‘SPLATTER ZONES’ OR ‘SUPPOSEDLY SAFE ZONES’

▪ THE ONLY STAGE ADAPTATION OFFICIALLY AUTHORISED BY THE ROMERO ESTATE, PRESENTED BY ARIA ENTERTAINMENT AND SENBLA

Night of the Living Dead™ Live has announced that it will extend to 8 June, playing a total of nine weeks at Pleasance, London, with opening night for press on 16 April. The first ever UK stage adaptation and the only officially authorised production based on George A. Romero’s cult zombie classic is directed by Benji Sperring (The Toxic Avenger: The Musical; Shock Treatment, Valley Of Song) and produced by Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment and Ollie Rosenblatt for Senbla. Production images are now available to download in the link above.

This new adaptation of Night of the Living Dead™ will be played out on a monochrome set paying homage to the 1968 classic and featuring all the iconic scenes along with an entirely new journey for the beloved characters from the farmhouse in the second act. A loving, comedic tribute to the world-renowned zombie film, this production skirts the line between the horrific and the hysterical, culminating in a frightening and funny night out. Audiences can choose to get amongst the gore in one of the special ‘Splatter Zones’ or those who prefer to keep zombies at arm’s length can opt for seating in the ‘Supposedly Safe Zones’.

1960s, rural Pennsylvania. Six strangers, a lonely farmhouse, surrounded by zombies – what could possibly go wrong? Who will make it out alive?

Night of the Living Dead™ Live had its world premiere in Toronto in 2013 and is the only officially authorised stage production endorsed by the Romero Estate which will come to the UK for the first time this spring.

The production stars Ashley Samuels (Ben), recently seen in Fun Home at the and Motown the Musical in the West End, in the iconic role of the protagonist, with Jennifer Harding (Helen/Judy) who was named Hello Magazine’s Rising Star of 2018 and received multi-award nominations for her role in The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Marc Pickering (Harry) best known for playing the young Sheriff Enoch Thompson in Sky Atlantic’s Boardwalk Empire, Mari McGinlay (Barbra) winner of the Young Scottish Musical Theatre Performer of the Year Award, Mike Bodie (Chief McClelland) who has starred in The Comedy About a Bank Robbery and is a creator and founding member of Mischief Theatre, and Tama Phethean (Tom) previously seen at The Globe in The Great Duke of Florence and The False One.

First seen in 1968, Night of the Living Dead™ is widely regarded as one of the most iconic and influential releases of all time. Previously dominated by Hammer horror, George A. Romero radically redefined the genre of the modern horror film introducing zombies as a social construct in his seminal 1968 movie. His influence is still felt today spawning countless zombie films and series such as Sean of the Dead and The Walking Dead. Now, more than 50 years on, the story of Night of the Living Dead™ remains as relevant as ever through its exploration of race, class division and America's national identity.

Night of the Living Dead™ Live, based on the film by George A. Romero, is co- produced by award-winning producer Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment and Ollie Rosenblatt for Senbla by special arrangement with Samuel French Ltd. It is written by Christopher Bond, Dale Boyer and Trevor Martin and created by Christopher Harrison and Phil Pattison. The production is directed by Benji Sperring, designed by Diego Pitarch with lighting design by Nic Farman, soundscape design by Samuel West, sound design by James Nicholson and Paul Gavin, and casting by Jane Deitch.

Tickets on sale at www.LivingDeadLondon.com

-ENDS-

For further information please contact The Corner Shop PR on 020 7831 7657

Su-Ann Chow-Seegoolam | Chloe Pritchard-Gordon | Lydia Aaronson

LISTINGS

Aria Entertainment and Senbla, by special arrangement with Samuel French, present George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD™ LIVE! Written by Christopher Bond, Dale Boyer and Trevor Martin Created by Christopher Harrison and Phil Pattison Co-produced with FOCUS, WMK Productions and Kierstead Productions Directed by Benji Sperring Designed by Diego Pitarch Lighting Design by Nic Farman Soundscape Design by Samuel West Sound Design by James Nicholson and Paul Gavin Casting by Jane Deitch

Pleasance, London Carpenters Mews, North Road, London N7 9EF

First Performance: 9 April 2019 Press Night: 16 April 2019 Final Performance: 8 June 2019 Performances: Tuesday to Saturday 7.30pm, matinees Thursday & Saturday 2.30pm and Sunday, 5pm.

Box Office details Website: www.LivingDeadLondon.com Tel: 020 7609 1800 Prices from £15

Twitter: @LivingDeadLDN Facebook: @LivingDeadLondon Instagram: @LivingDeadLDN #LivingDeadLondon

NOTES TO EDITORS

CAST BIOGRAPHIES

Ashley Samuels (Ben) recently appeared in the critically-acclaimed Fun Home at the Young Vic. Other stage credits also include Motown the Musical (), The Toxic Avenger (), The Book of Mormon () and The World Goes Round (Stephen Joseph Theatre).

Jennifer Harding (Helen/Judy) was named by Hello Magazine as a Rising Star of 2018. On stage she has appeared in The Clockmaker’s Daughter (Landor Theatre), It’s Only Life (Union Theatre), Funny Girl (UK and Ireland Tour), Legally Blonde (Kilworth House Theatre), Mamma Mia! (UK tour) and Dancing Queen (international tour).

Marc Pickering (Harry) is best known for playing the young Sheriff Enoch Thompson in Boardwalk Empire. TV and film credits also include Sleepy Hollow, Cricklewood Greats, Les Misérables, Britain’s Got the Pop Factor, Calendar Girls, Dalziel And Pascoe. Stage credits include An Incident At The Border, The Elephant Man(Trafalgar Studios), Merchant Of Venice (), The Toxic Avenger (Southwark Playhouse) and Seussical The Musical (Southwark Playhouse).

Mari McGinlay (Barbra), won the Young Scottish Musical Theatre Performer of the Year in 2014. Theatre credits include Oklahoma! (Royal Albert Hall), Singin’ in the Rain (Pitlochry Festival Theatre), Tainted (The Vaults) and Cinderella (Antony Law).

Mike Bodie (Chief McClelland) has performed on stage in The Nativity Goes Wrong and The Comedy About a Bank Robbery. Film credits also include The Siege of Jadotville, Spectral, Don't Hang Up, Criminal and Angel Has Fallen.

Tama Phethean (Tom/Johnny/Vince/Bill) has performed on stage in Grow up, be a good parent (Iconoclast), Macbeth (Young Shakespeare Company), The Great Duke of Florence (The Globe), The False One (The Globe) and ManMuck ().

CREATIVE TEAM BIOGRAPHIES

ARIA ENTERTAINMENT Aria Entertainment was founded in 2012 by producer Katy Lipson.

In 2017, Katy was awarded the Best Producer award at the Off-West End Awards and is a recipient of the Stage One Bursary and Start Up Award. She made the prestigious The Stage 100 in 2018 and 2019 with Joe Houston and William Whelton for their work at Hope Mill Theatre where Katy is Producing Artistic Director and where the current UK Tour of HAIR began its life back in 2016. Productions there include Parade, Pippin which transferred to Southwark Playhouse and received a record number of nominations, Little Women, Spring Awakening which won the 2019 WhatsOnStage Award for Best Regional Production, Aspects Of Love, Yank which transferred to , Putting It Together, and new musicals The Toyboy Diaries and The Return Of The Soldier.

Katy produced the UK Premiere Tour of starring , Les Dennis and Carrie Hope Fletcher and the 50th Anniversary production of HAIR at the London Vaults which won the award for Best Off-West End Production at the 2018 WhatsOnStage Awards. She also produced the London transfer of new musical The Toxic Avenger at the , West End following runs at The Edinburgh Festival’s Pleasance Theatre and the Southwark Playhouse.

Katy set up the FROM PAGE TO STAGE festival to support new musicals at all difference stages of development. In 6 years FPTS has given platform to over 100 new musicals of which many have gone on to have full productions and be licensed worldwide and in 2017 Katy was invited to run the festival at Andrew Lloyd Webber’s newly acquired Theatre.

Other recent productions include: Aspects of Love (Southwark Playhouse); Unexpected Joy (Southwark Playhouse and York Theatre, Off-Broadway); It’s Only Life (Union Theatre); tick, tick...BOOM! (); Promises, Promises (Southwark Playhouse); Vanities The Musical (Trafalgar Studios); See What I Wanna See and The Return Of The Soldier (Jermyn Street Theatre); The Adventures of Pinocchio, Lizzie and The Who’s Tommy () and Marry Me A Little, Jerry’s Girls and Forever Plaid (St. James Studio).

Other current projects include: RAGS (Hope Mill Theatre) Night of the Living Dead - LIVE (Pleasance, London); Mame (starring double Olivier Award-winner Tracie Bennett) and The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit (Hope Mill Theatre).

Twitter: @AriaEnts www.aria-entertainment.com

SENBLA Ollie Rosenblatt founded Senbla in 2011 after running Jazz FM’s live division. Ollie is a new breed of promoter and producer taking both a traditional approach mixed with a forward-thinking aptitude centered around unlocking and adding value from great songs, catalogues and artists as demonstrated by the hugely successful A Life In Song songwriter series at London’s o2 Arena and the Royal Festival Hall which he created, produced and promoted. The ‘A Life In Song’ concerts with Quincy Jones, Don Black, Tim Rice and Burt Bacharach were recorded, filmed and broadcast on BBC Radio 2, BBC 2 and 4. Senbla produces and promotes large-scale tours for artists across the UK working with artists such as Ennio Morricone, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Soft Cell, Tony Bennett, Nigel Kennedy, Marc Almond, Joss Stone, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Beverley Knight, David Arnold, Jason Robert Brown, Audra McDonald, to the Harry Potter films, Star Wars, Beauty And The Beast, Love Actually, Pixar, The Godfather all show with live orchestral accompaniment. Senbla has also produced a number of concept shows such as The Golden Age of Dance and Broadway In Concert, as well as musicals in concert How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying; Peter Pan and Of Thee I Sing. Senbla also co produced Hair (both London and UK Tour) and Promises Promises. Twitter: @senbla BENJI SPERRING, DIRECTOR

Benji Sperring is “the naughty boy of musical theatre” (ToDoList), and is fast becoming the go-to director for cult comedies and off-the-wall musicals. Having developed the world premiere of Shock Treatment, the sequel to the Rocky Horror Show, from 1980s film flop to sell-out five-star stage show and Whatsonstage Best Off West End Production nominee, he also brought (with Katy Lipson) The Toxic Avenger: The Musical over the Atlantic for its European premiere, starting at the Southwark Playhouse and moving to the Arts Theatre in the West End, where it was filmed and released worldwide by BroadwayHD. Benji’s recent directing credits include How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (Wilton’s Music Hall), The Liver Birds: Flying Home ( Royal Court), Richard O’Brien’s The Stripper (St James Theatre), the premiere of Ivor Novello’s final musical Valley Of Song and Rutland Boughton’s The Immortal Hour () and The Bald Prima Donna and The Blind & The Intruder (Old Red Lion Theatre). Benji is associate director at the King’s Head Theatre, where his work includes new musicals Holy Crap and Hamilton (Lewis). Twitter: @Benjidirector DIEGO PITARCH, DESIGNER Diego Pitarch trained as an Architect in Spain and later in Interior Design at the prestigious E.S.A.G. school of Design in Paris. He has collaborated with American designer Hilton McConnico and, amongst other projects, contributed to the design of an exhibition celebrating the “Carre” Hermes at the Suntory Museum in Osaka, Japan. Diego relocated to London to study at the Slade School of Art in Theatre Design. In 2001 he was selected for the Linbury Prize and his design for Katya Kabanova for the Welsh National Opera placed him amongst the finalists. Since then Diego has developed a career as an international theatre designer, collaborating with renowned directors and companies. His work has appeared in theatres across the UK, Europe and the Caribbean. Recent successes include Sunset Boulevard in London’s West End and Spend, Spend, Spend which won a TMA award for Best Musical in 2009, the 2011 European tour of The Who’s Tommy, the 2013 UK and Ireland tour of Fiddler on the Roof starring Paul Michael Glaser and the 2014 UK touring production of Fame. www.diegopitarch.com NIC FARMAN, LIGHTING DESIGNER

Winner of The Worshipful Company of Lightmongers & ALD Award for New Talent in Entertainment Lighting 2016. Winner of the Francis Reid Award as part of the ALD Michael Northen Bursary 2013. Nominated for Best Lighting Designer at the ‘Off West End Awards’ in 2016 for The Spanish Tragedy and in 2015 for Shock Treatment and The Win Bin.

Musicals include: Billionaire Boy (NST City, Southampton), The Toxic Avenger (Arts Theatre & Southwark Playhouse), Spring Awakening (Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester), Newsies; Priscilla (ArtsEd Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Theatre), Liver Birds Flying Home (Liverpool Royal Court), Working (Southwark Playhouse), How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Wilton’s Music Hall), Damn Yankees (), The Stripper (St James Studio), Dusty (Auzura, P&O Cruises), Children of Eden (Union Theatre), Brexit The Musical (C Venues Edinburgh), The Life (ArtsEd Studio), Urinetown (Pleasance Theatre), Dracula! (), Holy Crap; Shock Treatment (King’s Head Theatre).

Theatre includes: Tonight: The Eighties (National Theatre, Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre, Kuwait), Kindertransport (Queens Theatre Hornchurch, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg & UK Tour), The Invisible Man (Queens Theatre, Hornchurch), Late Company (Trafalgar Studios & Finborough Theatre), Jack and the Beanstalk (Salisbury Playhouse), Spindrift (The Garage, Norwich & The Drum, Plymouth), Coming Clean; Cosi; F*cking Men (King’s Head Theatre), Peter Pan; Positive (Park Theatre), Jack and the Beanstalk (Derngate, Northampton), The Crucible; Balm in Gilead (Arcola Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Newbury Corn Exchange & National Tour), Cinderella (), Richard III (Cockpit Theatre & Greenwich Theatre), Daisy Pulls it Off; A Level Playing Field (Shoreditch Town Hall), The Little Mermaid (), The Laramie Project (Leicester Curve)

Opera includes: La Boheme (Trafalgar Studios & King’s Head Theatre), Madam Butterfly; Cosi Fan Tutte (King’s Head Theatre), The Immortal Hour (Finborough Theatre)

SAMUEL WEST, SOUNDSCAPE DESIGNER

Sam West is an award-winning sound designer, composer and multi-instrumentalist who has been performing and writing music for over 15 years. During his career he has toured around the world, played some of the biggest festivals and performed on stages with many incredible artists and acts. Sam trained as an opera and classical singer at one of Glasgow’s most prestigious music schools and during this time also founded a band and fell in love with blues, jazz and soul music. After tours with artists such as Jools Holland helped him reach a wider audience, he moved to London to continue his career and soon became involved in many exciting projects. Earlier this year he won an ‘Offie’ Award (The Off Awards) for his composition and sound design for the show Becoming Shades.

JANE DEITCH, CASTING DIRECTOR

As Head of Casting for BBC Drama Series, Jane was responsible for an output in excess of 500 hours of drama per year. This included EastEnders, Casualty, Judge John Deed & the Emmy Award- winning Waking The Dead. More recently, Jane has run her own casting company Jane Deitch Associates and now casts for a wide variety of productions including theatre, musical theatre and films.

Casting credits include: Films: Unhallowed Ground (Best Horror Film, LIFF / 2 Supporting Actor awards, BIFAwards), Locked In with Ben Barnes, Eliza Dushku, Clarke Peters, New Years Day (Jury Prize: Raindance/Best Film: Sapporo FF), the BAFTA-winning Shoot the Messenger with David Oyelowo and Nikki Amuka-Bird and Magnificent 7 with Helena Bonham-Carter.

Other TV: , Doctors, In Deep, Dalziel and Pascoe, the BAFTA-nominated A Respectable Trade, Drovers’ Gold, The Mrs Bradley Mysteries with Diana Rigg and Walter’s War with OT Fagbenle.

Theatre: Shirley Valentine, The Blue Room, Othello. For Jermyn Street Theatre - Flowers Of The Forest, The Green Bay Tree, The Autumn Garden, I Loved Lucy, The First Man, and The Last Ones.

West End: Lend Me A Tenor: The Musical, I Loved Lucy, The Toxic Avenger, Bumblescratch Gala Concert.

Tours: Bouncers, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy Radio Show Live, Women On The Verge Of HRT, Gertrude’s Secret, Diary Of A Nobody, Avenue Q.

Musical Theatre: How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, Holy Crap, Pete n Keely. For Aria Entertainment - Forever Plaid, Tick Tick Boom, Promises, Promises, Some Lovers, The Toxic Avenger, Brexit The Musical, It’s Only Life, From Page To Stage 2018, Unexpected Joy. For Hope/Aria at The Hope Mill Theatre - Little Women, The Toy Boy Diaries, Aspects Of Love (and Southwark Playhouse), The Return Of The Soldier, Putting It Together. Little Miss Sunshine (Arcola Theatre)

Currently: Rags, Mame (Hope/Aria), Night Of The Living Dead Live (Aria/Senbla). Feature film - Thrice. Ongoing Theatre-in-Education projects in China.