Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, the award-winning creators of Six the Musical, are premiering a brand new show in the West End this summer.
Why Am I So Single?, their new “big fancy musical”, will follow two best friends through “the ups, and mostly downs, of their dating lives” as they navigate relationships in a time of many apps.
It will ask “how two super interesting, super cool, super fun pals could possibly still be single?!?”, unpacking this “extraordinary and totally unexplainable situation”.
Why Am I So Single? will open at the Garrick Theatre on August 27, running until February 2025.
“This is ultimately a musical about two friends, their desire for love, and how they deal with loneliness,” said the acclaimed writing duo. “We hope people come away feeling super uplifted. And we hope they text someone the second they leave the theatre saying ‘omigosh just fyi i love you soooo much!!!!”
Lucy Moss and fellow Cambridge student Toby Marlow premiered their first musical, Six, at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017, where it picked up rave reviews, completely selling out.
Its subsequent success is the stuff of theatre makers’ dreams: the musical – in which Henry the Eighth’s six wives compete (in a pop concert) over who suffered most at the notorious king’s hands – was invited back to Edinburgh Fringe for a second sell-out year.
It then transferred to the West End’s Arts Theatre, went on a UK tour, re-opened at the West End’s Lyric Theatre, had a small pre-Broadway US tour, toured Australia, was performed on Norwegian Cruise Line ships (why not?) and then opened on Broadway in October 2021 (after a Covid-related delay which saw it close on its initial opening night in 2020) – picking up a number of accolades along the way, including two Tony awards, a Grammy nomination, and five Olivier award nominations.
The celebrated 29 and 30 year-old creators have since also collaborated on comedy cabaret show Hot Gay Time Machine (2017-2021). But Why Am I So Single? will be their first musical, and major collaboration, since Six.
Jo Foster (& Juliet; Just For One Day, West End) and Leesa Tulley (Six, UK Tour; Kin, Theatro Technis) will star in the new production as the two best friends.
They’ll be joined on stage by Noah Thomas (Everything Now, Netflix; Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, West End), while the rest of the ensemble cast is still to be announced.
The creative team includes choreography from Ellen Kane (Matilda the Musical, Working Title Films; Dear England, National Theatre/West End), production from Kenny Wax (the Olivier award and Evening Standard award-winning musical, Top Hat), Ameena Hamid (The Wiz, Hope Mill Theatre) and George Stiles (Honk!, National Theatre/UK Tour; Mary Poppins, West End, Broadway).
