The Scottsboro Boys announces initial West End casting

The West End transfer of the Young Vic production of The Scottsboro Boys by Kander and Ebb, which will open on 20 Oct 2014 at the Garrick Theatre, following previews from 4 Oct, has now announced initial casting.

Broadway star Brandon Victor Dixon will make his West End debut as Haywood Patterson, the role he created in the original US production. Dixon is currently starring as Motown founder Berry Gordy in 'Motown: The Musical' on Broadway. He also starred in the Broadway production of 'The Color Purple' as Harpo.

Dixon will be joined by fellow American actors Olivier Award nominee Colman Domingo (Mr Bones), Forrest McClendon (Mr Tambo), and James T Lane (Ozie Powell), as well as British actors including Game of Thrones star Julian Glover (The Interlocutor), Dawn Hope, Dex Lee, Rohan Pinnock-Hamilton, Richard Pitt, Emile Ruddock and Carl Spencer.

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, the original London production was nominated for 6 Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical. It won the Critics' Circle Best Musical 2013 following its run at the Young Vic Theatre.

Synopsis: 'The musical tells the true story of nine young black men, aged between 12 and 19, travelling on a train through Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931 in search of a new life. As the group find themselves wrongly accused of rape, their subsequent trial divides the nation, and continues to affect legislation years after the events. As they are turned into symbols of free press and the civil rights movement, behind the screaming headlines was the devastating story of nine young men, desperate to prove to the world that they mattered'.

The production originally opened on Broadway in 2010, where it went on to be nominated for 12 Tony Awards. The musical uses the conventions of a minstrel show to tell the story in an original manner.

The Scottsboro Boys has music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago), book by David Thompson, set design by Beowulf Boritt, costume design by Toni-Leslie James, lighting design by Ken Billington, sound design by Paul Arditti and orchestrations by Larry Hochman. It is produced in the West End by Catherine Schreiber, Paula Marie Black and Young Vic Productions.