Elegies for Angels, Punks & Raging Queens

2015
Website
The Criterion Theatre, London

“a sublime, moving evening”
~ Mark Shenton

★★★★ Musical Theatre Review:
“an evening of joy, tears, of celebration of life”

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Written by: Bill Russell and Janet Hood

Director: Stephen Whitson
Musical Director: Dean Austin
Choreographer: Ewan Jones
Designer: Alex Doidge-Green
Lighting Designer: David W. Kidd

Produced by: First Light Theatre and TheateMAD

Photography © Darren Bell 2015

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Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens is a song cycle with music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell. The work features songs and monologues inspired by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. Each of the monologues is written from the perspective of characters who’ve died from AIDS and the songs represent the feelings of friends and family members dealing with the loss.

The piece was developed in the late 1980s and was originally titled “The Quilt.” It was produced first at the Ohio Theatre in Soho in NYC in 1989, where the new title was adopted. In 1992, it was produced at the King’s Head Theatre in London, where it played for several months. In June 1993, the production was transferred to the Criterion Theatre in London’s West End.

Bill Russell has adapted the piece over the years and has kindly given us permission to be the first people to produce this “new version for the 21st century”.

The evening is not only there to raise much needed funds for The Make A Difference Trust but also to help raise awareness about Aids which is still as important now as ever before.