Music and Lyrics by Grant Olding
Book by Grant Olding
with Toby Davies
Directed by Clive Paget
Musical Direction by Mark Collins
Cast: Simon Gleeson. Jon-Paul Hevey. Caroline Sheen.
25 and 26 June, 2, 9 and 10 July 2006
Prior to New York, New British Music Theatre at the Finborough
Three Sides tells the simple story of three people sharing one relationship. After a depressing new year a chance meeting leads to Carrie getting involved with both Ant and Brian. But when she can't decide which to ditch and the men fall desperately in love with her, even the simplest things start to get complicated.
A contemporary love story, with three selfish, needy, passionate, neurotic, romantic, over-worked individuals who find out that there are three sides to every story - yours, mine and the truth.
Three Sides plays at the Finborough prior to a run at the New York Musical Theatre Festival 2006 as part of their ‘Next Link’ project. Three Sides was picked out during a very competitive selection process, with only 18 shows being chosen from nearly 400 submissions. This year's NYMF Grand Jury will include Drama Desk nominee Anthony Rapp (Rent), three-time Tony winner Tom Meehan (Annie, The Producers), Tony Award winner Phylicia Rashad (Gem of the Ocean, Bernarda Alba), Tony winner David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), seven-time Joseph Jefferson Award winner Gary Griffin (The Color Purple), Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time Tony winner Marsha Norman (The Color Purple, The Secret Garden, 'night, Mother) and Tony-winning producer Michael Rego of The Araca Group.
The cast includes Jon-Paul Hevey (The Next Big Thing, Spittin' Distance, Blood Brothers), Simon Gleeson (Southwark Fair, The Far Pavillions, Mamma Mia) and Caroline Sheen (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang, Les Miserables).
Director Clive Paget is Music Theatre Consultant to the National Theatre where he is responsible to Nicholas Hytner for the development of new musical theatre work. He was Artistic Director of London’s Bridewell Theatre from 2000 to 2002, directing many of its most successful productions including the European premieres of Michael John LaChiusa’s Hello Again, Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World and Adam Guettel’s Floyd Collins. He also co-directed the world premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s first musical, Saturday Night. He devised and directed The Cutting Edge, which brought together the talents of Jason Robert Brown, Adam Guettel and Michael John LaChiusa and played at the Donmar Warehouse and the Cardiff International Festival of Musical Theatre.
Composer/Lyricist Grant Olding trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and was resident composer at the Bridewell Theatre 2003/04. Grant's Musical Theatre work includes Spittin' Distance (Stephen Joseph Scarborough, NT Studio), Born of Glass (Lyric Belfast, NYMT), Beyond The Sea (Bridewell) and A Celebrity Chef Ate My Hamster (Bridewell, Chichester). He recently wrote the music for Samuel Adamson's Southwark Fair (National Theatre), directed by Nicholas Hytner.
Toby Davies has worked regularly with Grant Olding as a book writer and co-lyricist. Toby and Grant created Spittin’ Distance together, and are working on a new piece for the Royal Scottish Academy. Other theatre credits include The Magnets-Magnetude (Assembly Rooms) and The Blue Diamond of Azkabar (Brook Theatre and Tour). Radio includes It’s Been a Bad Week (Radio 2). Television includes Swinging (Channel 5). His sit-com, ’55 Half Moon Road, is currently in development with the BBC.
The Press on Grant Olding
“There are a few things one always hopes for in Musical Theatre. …Real thoughts, real feelings, real people may exist - but you rarely meet them in musicals. That's why I whooped, possibly even out loud, when I first came across Grant Olding's Three Sides. At last a piece where characters are as weird and wilful and perverse and pained, as lost and a lusting as sad and as silly as practically everyone I know. And where the music comes from them rather than being grafted on to them. And where modern thoughts go hand in hand with old forms. Grant is mysteriously young and old, experimental, yet grounded in the history of the form” Jeremy Sams
“An exceptional talent with enormous potential” John Schofield, Director. Josef Weinberger Ltd
On Not(es) from New York – “…A series of haunting, funny, captivating new songs by Charles Miller and Grant Olding… here are two of our own who can give Jason Robert Brown a run for his money…On the evidence of the work heard here, West End producers are missing out on a potential goldmine of hit musicals. ...those lucky enough to be at the Duchess Theatre were amongst the privileged few who in future years may be able to say they were there when these major talents were first brought to fuller attention.” Mark Shenton, The Stage
