‘Little Women’ musical premieres in London after three-decade wait

Decades after three Californian youth theatre students decided to write a musical based on Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age classic “Little Women”, they have achieved a sell-out world premiere at London’s Theatre Royal.

“We were the age of the kids when we wrote it,” said composer Dan Redfeld, speaking before Sunday’s concert performance. “Now we’re coming back to it at the age of the adults.”

“Jo - The Little Women Musical” began when Redfeld saw and loved the 1994 film of “Little Women”, starring Winona Ryder as the young heroine Jo March and Susan Sarandon as her mother Marmee.

“As you do in youth theatre,” Redfeld said, he thought: “Let’s write a musical.”

Together with lyricists Christina Harding and John Gabriel Koladziej, he did. That was the easy part.

Workshopping with Elaine Stritch

Years of false starts followed, including workshopping the project with Broadway star Elaine Stritch.

The 9/11 attacks in 2000 led funding to disappear. After that, COVID slowed their attempt to revive it, but gave them time to revise.

The show at last has funders and big stars. Following Sunday’s one-night premiere, the team is working to arrange more performances, but said they could not yet disclose details.

A selling point is the show’s lush sound provided by a nearly 30-strong orchestra that harks back to the West End musicals of the late eighties and nineties that were the creators’ influences when they began writing “Jo”.

Kerry Ellis, who sings Marmee, and has previously starred in dozens of major musicals, said such “luscious orchestras” have become rare. “This is very special because of that,” she said.

The West End premiere was preceded by an album, released last year, and recordings at London’s Abbey Road Studios, where The Beatles and so many others have gone before.

For everyone in the show, Abbey Road Studios is a setting they never take for granted. Working there was full of “pinch me moments,” Koladziej said after a rehearsal session at the Studios late last week.