Cast announced for Elegies for Angels Punks and Raging Queens

Cast announced for one night concert performance.

Casting has been announced for The British Theatre Academy's one night only concert staging of Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens at Charing Cross Theatre on Sunday 4 September 2016. Funds raised from the production will go towards giving young people opportunities to train and perform for free in professional theatres.

The cast of students and professionals will include Jaymi Hensley (Union J) Anton Stephans (X Factor), Gerard McCarthy (The Fall) Edward Bennett, Max Bowden, Becky Craven, Harry Francis and Matthew Seadon Young.

Elegies For Angels Punks and Raging Queens is a musical song cycle with a blues, jazz and rock score inspired by the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and features music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell. The song cycle was first produced at the Ohio Theatre in New York in 1989 before a run off-Broadway in 1990. In 1992 it had its London premiere at the King's Head Theatre in Angel from where it transferred to the Criterion Theatre in the West End.

"Dramatic, powerful and emotionally intense, it celebrates those who have lost their lives to AIDS. A series of heart-rending monologues and songs represent the feelings of friends and family members dealing with the loss, from some 30 individuals who died as a result of contracting AIDS from a wide variety of sources, including a regular Joe who dropped into a brothel to a granny who was given an infected blood transfusion. Each coming from very different walks of life, every character has their own unique story to share, but one tragic link in common. Interspersing these stories are the poignant and uplifting songs from the victims' loved ones, reminding us that AIDS affects the lives of more than the individual sufferers."

The British Theatre Academy has been set up to give young people who can not afford to access theatre theatre training the opportunity to work with top creatives in venues around the country.

Tickets to the performance are now on sale.