The Secret Life of Bees Musical Coming to London

The Secret Life of Bees, a critically-acclaimed New York musical adaptation, will finally make its UK debut. The show’s world premiere was presented by Atlantic Theatre Company in New York in 2019.

Based on the bestselling book by Sue Monk Kidd, the musical is written by a playwright and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage (Sweat), lyricist and Drama Desk winner Susan Birkenhead (Jelly’s Last Jam) and composer and Grammy Award winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening), and directed by an Obie Award-winning director, writer, and musician based in Brooklyn, Whitney White (What to Send Up When it Goes Down).

More details on the casting and creative team are yet to be announced, but there has been talk of the Broadway star LaChanze starring in this production.

Set in 1960s South Carolina, two girls escape on an adventure where they meet a trio of beekeeping Boatwright sisters:

Me and my sisters

We hold this house together

Hurt just one, you hurt us all

But we’ll still be standing tall

Will Lily escape her violent father, and Rosaleen succeed in fighting for her right to vote? In this incredible story of friendship and rebellion, the girls unlock the secrets of their past and find comfort in the mesmerizing world of bees.

The show will be funded and produced by West End producer Sonia Friedman, Broadway producer Marianne Mills and film producers Lauren Shuler Donner and Robert Cohen.

Almeida’s 2022-2023 season is also to include Cabaret director Rebecca Frecknall’s visionary adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and Tammy Faye, a new musical from legendary songwriter Elton John, award-winning writer James Graham and Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears.

Almeida’s successful production of Peter Morgan’s Patriots will be transferred to the West End, starting in May 2023, and hopefully, the same will happen for The Secret Life of Bees.

The Secret Life of Bees will premiere in The Almeida Theatre in London and run from 4 April to 27 May 2023.