Steve Sidwell, the Grammy-winning orchestrator of Operation Mincemeat, is on the creative team of Tinseltown Tiptoe, a new musical comedy that Tony winner Michael Mayer will direct in an invitation-only presentation in New York on Thursday 7 January 2027.
It is a workshop showing rather than a run. Producer Christine Russell, who announced it on 6 October, has named no venue and there are no tickets on sale, and no London plans have been mentioned, so for now this is one to watch rather than one to book.
Sidwell’s work will be familiar to West End audiences. Nominated for Olivier, Tony and Emmy awards, he orchestrated Operation Mincemeat as well as We Will Rock You, Bat Out of Hell and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and away from the stage he has worked on albums with George Michael and Robbie Williams and on the King’s Coronation Concert.
The book is by Kate Moira Ryan and Nicholas Coster, with music and lyrics by Heather Reid, a founding member of the band The Murmurs, and music direction by Joshua Zecher-Ross. Bespoke Theatricals is general manager.
Mayer won his Tony for directing Spring Awakening and has since staged American Idiot, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and the recent Broadway revival of Funny Girl. Russell was an executive producer of Beautiful on Broadway and lead producer of Head Over Heels.
The story is set in Hollywood in 1952. Rising leading man Cliff Stone is hiding his relationship with Mark, a blacklisted writer, and with a gossip columnist closing in, the studio’s answer is a marriage of convenience to Dora Gentry, a star on the slide. The arrangement revives Dora’s fortunes and opens a door into screenwriting for her assistant, May, while straining Cliff and Mark to the limit, and when the story finally breaks, the way out may lie in a secret from the columnist’s own past.
Further details are at TinseltownTiptoe.com.
