NYMT Royal Charity Gala 9 Oct 2005

NYMT Royal Charity Gala 9 Oct 2005

National Youth Music Theatre Royal Charity Gala will take place on Sunday 9 Oct 2005 at the Piccadilly Theatre.

In the presence of HRH, The Earl Of Wessex, CVO, this Royal Charity Gala celebrates over 28 years of excellence from the NATIONAL YOUTH MUSIC THEATRE as well as looking towards the Company's exciting future.

Taking part will be over 100 past and present NYMT members and supporters including MATT LUCAS, AMY NUTTALL, JONNY LEE MILLER and RICHARD STILGOE. More ex NYMT performers will be announced soon.

There will be extracts from the NYMT's productions including 'Pendragon', 'The Ragged Child', 'The Dreaming', 'The Kissing Dance', Richard Taylor's 'Whistle Down The Wind' and two new pieces commissioned especially for the Gala. There will also be extracts from 'Oklahoma', 'Guys And Dolls', 'Chicago', 'Les Misérables'. There will be a 30 piece Gala orchestra and an exciting live auction with major prizes.

The National Youth Music Theatre exists to give young people throughout the United Kingdom the opportunity to participate in all aspects of music theatre to the highest international standard, including the creation of new music theatre repertoire. The NYMT performs all over the UK and abroad and has won national and international recognition for the quality, originality and popularity of its work.

The NYMT started life in August 1976 in a tent pitched outside St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh where Jeremy James Taylor's production of a new ballad opera about Elizabethan child actors, written for a cast of 11-14 year olds, was appearing as part of the Festival Fringe. The Ballad of Salomon Pavey was an instant success, acclaimed not just as a 'children's show' but as a show about young people with wide audience appeal. It won a coveted Fringe First Award, played at The Young Vic as part of the Queen's Silver Jubilee Celebrations the following year and was subsequently published and televised. In 1987 HRH The Earl of Wessex became the company's president and from 1993 - 1999 Andrew Lloyd Webber was its principal supporter. The NYMT is currently looking for new sponsorship.