Bad Cinderella on Broadway Tickets

By: Emerald Fennell, with additional book material by Alexis Scheer
Songs by: Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by David Zippel
Director: Laurence Connor
Choreography: JoAnn M. Hunter
Cast list: Linedy Genao (as Cinderella), Savy Jackson (as Cinderella alternate), Carolee Carmello (as the Stepmother), Grace McLean (as the Queen), Jordan Dobson (as Sebastian), Sami Gayle (as Adele), Morgan Higgins (as Marie), Christina Acosta Robinson (as the Godmother) Design: Gabriela Tylesova
Costumes: Gabriela Tylesova
Lighting: Bruno Poet
Sound: Gareth Owen
Other info: Hair and wig design by Luc Verschueren

In the Bad Cinderella musical, our heroine is an outcast by choice, unlike in the original fairy tale. She changes her tune upon realizing she has feelings for her best friend, Prince Sebastian: believing he won’t love her as she is, Cinderella gets a temporary makeover from a local Godmother (read: plastic surgeon). But what will happen when the beauty fades?

Bad Cinderella premiered in London's West End in 2021, running there for just over a year. The show received multiple nods at London’s Olivier and WhatsOnStage Awards, and Webber and lyricist David Zippel’s score got a Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theater Album.

That nod was Webber’s 15th Grammy nomination to date; he’s won the award four times (including a Grammy Legend special award), and also has one Oscar, one Emmy, and seven Tonys, putting him in the select group to achieve EGOT status. His most famous works include Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard, and Jesus Christ Superstar, among others.

Behind the original story for Bad Cinderella is Emerald Fennell, the Oscar-winning writer of the 2020 film Promising Young Woman. A multi-hyphenate, she also directed that film, was the showrunner for season 2 of Killing Eve, and has acted on shows including The Crown. Critically acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Alexis Scheer (Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin) provides additional material for the script.

What to Watch For

• Webber's musical was simply titled Cinderella when it premiered in London. Like Cinderella herself, the title got a makeover!
• The Cinderella story is popular with musical theatre writers. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote a Cinderella musical in 1957, and Cinderella is a main character in Sondheim's fairytale mashup musical Into the Woods.
• A show about beauty needs eye-catching costumes. An ArtsDesk review of the London production describes the aesthetic as "Elsa Schiaparelli meets Jean Paul Gaultier in pre-revolutionary France," with the women's costumes displaying a "torrent of taffeta" and the men's, "muscle-enhancing minimalism."
• The London cast of Bad Cinderella were inspired by performing icons. Rebecca Trehearn channeled Miranda Richardson and Jane Krakowski to perform the role of the Queen, and Caleb Roberts thought of attention-grabbing public figures, like Michael Jackson and even Barack Obama, while playing Prince Charming.
• In London, some seating sections in the Gillian Lynne Theatre (where Bad Cinderella performed) actually moved around during the production.