1994 – First Shrewsbury School musical
The 1980s heralded an explosion of dramatic activity at Shrewsbury.
In 1980, Robin Case was appointed to teach English and specifically to produce plays, followed a year by the arrival of a new Head of English, Peter Fanning, who also had considerable professional experience in the theatre. Within four years, the old Gymnasium had been transformed into the Ashton Theatre (named in honour of Shrewsbury’s first Headmaster, Thomas Ashton, famous for his drama productions) – with proper acoustics, lighting and sound, flexible arrangement of the seating and space for changing and storing of scenery.
With the arrival of John Moore as Director of Music in the early 1990s, musicals started to become a regular feature in the Shrewsbury Drama programme. And in 1994, the first ‘home-grown’ musical was created: ‘Jekyll’, adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, written by Peter Fanning, John Moore and Alex Went.
After performances at School, the production was taken to the Edinburgh Fringe, where it won a Fringe First Award.
Thus began a biennial tradition of critically acclaimed home-grown musicals, performed both in Shrewsbury and at the Edinburgh Fringe, that continues to this day.
SHREWSBURY SCHOOL AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE
1993 Guys and Dolls (Mankiewicz etc)
1995 Jekyll! (Moore, Went & Fanning) Photo below
1997 The Time Machine (Moore, Went & Fanning)
1998 Jekyll! The Revival (Moore, Went & Fanning)
2000 The Lost Domain (Moore, Went & Fanning) Photo below
2002 The Bubble (Moore, Hankin, Roach & Fanning) Photo below
2004 Into the Woods (Sondheim and Lapine)
2006 Frankenstein! (Fanning & Moore)
2008 Harry! (Fanning & Moore)
2009 The Bubble Revived (Moore, Hankin, Roach & Fanning)
2011 What You Will (Fanning & Moore)
2014 The Lost Domain Revival (Moore, Went & Fanning)
2016 Great Expectations (Moore & Fanning)
2018 The Drowned Bride (Moore & Brown) Photo below
2022 Gatsby: A New Musical (Moore & Brown)