Little Dancer

‘RAVISHING’(The Washington Post)‘SCINTILLATING’(Variety)‘A BREATHTAKING NEW MUSICAL’(Manhattan Digest)You may not know her name.

The production traces the life of Marie van Goethem, a fourteen-year-old dancer from a poor background, and her relationship with Edgar Degas. Its setting is Paris in the Belle Époque, a period of glittering public life alongside harsh hardship, and the story turns on a question about whether people shape their own futures or are shaped by them. Its ambition and the wish to be seen run through the piece.

The musical was created by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty and is directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, whose work gives the dance a central role. Tiler Peck, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, leads the cast, which also includes Julian Ovenden, Laura Pitt-Pulford and Josefina Gabrielle.

The show is staged at the Theatre Royal Haymarket for a limited run in London, before a world tour. It suits audiences interested in dance-led musical theatre and in the story of a real figure whose image became well known through Degas's sculpture of her in fourth position.