This is your chance at a Golden Ticket! Roald Dahl’s amazing tale, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is touring the imagi-nation, and it’s coming to the Eccles Theatre. The entire show is great for the whole family and a pure, delectable treat! Featuring songs from the original film, including “Pure Imagination,” “The Candy Man,” and “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket,” alongside a toe-tapping and ear-tickling new score from the songwriters of Hairspray. Get ready for Oompa-Loompas, incredible inventions, the great glass elevator, and more, more, more in this instantaneous showstopper!
“A big treat ready to satisfy any sweet tooth looking for a golden ticket!” – Entertainment Weekly
“Brings pure imagination to life.” – ABC
The world-famous Willy Wonka is opening the gates to his mysterious factory…but only to a lucky few. Young Charlie Bucket, along with the other winners, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teavee, and Augustus Gloop. Charlie is swept inside of the mysterious factory with his Grandpa Joe to embark on the journey of a lifetime, through Wonka’s world of pure imagination including chocolate waterfalls, nutty squirrels, and the great glass elevator, all will be revealed by Wonka’s army of curious Oompa-Loompas. But as the winners begin to let their greed and selfish nature’s get the better of them, it seems that everything is not as sweet as it seems. Finally, once little Charlie is the last child standing, the only one not to have succumbed to the sweet temptations of Willy Wonka’s magical world. His humble, loyal nature has not gone unnoticed by Mr. Wonka, and Charlie’s reward is more than he could ever have dreamed.
“This winning production lifts the spirit and fills the heart as only live theater can.” – Philadelphia Inquirer
“MESMERIZING! This ‘Charlie’ is a romp of an adventure.” – Chicago Sun-Times
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a musical based on the 1964 children’s novel by Roald Dahl, it was made into a stage musical in 2013 with book by David Greig, music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman. The score also pays homage to the Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley score from the 1971 film and features songs from the motion picture including “Candy Man,” “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket,” “Oompa Loompa Song,” and “Pure Imagination.”
Directed by Sam Mendes, the musical premiered in the West End at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 2013 breaking the record for weekly ticket sales in London and winning 2 Laurence Olivier Awards in 2014 for Best Costume Design and Best Lighting Design. The show was reworked for Broadway, and production opened in 2017 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre where it won a Drama Desk Award for its Puppet Design. The first US Tour took off in 2018, an Australian tour took place in 2019, and the second US Tour started in 2020.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Broadway Review: Christian Borle to the Rescue
“In my nearly half century of Broadway theatergoing, I’ve never witnessed such a second-act reversal of fortune as what’s going on now at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, where “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” opened Sunday. Only in retrospective can you see glimmers of hope in the musical’s desultory first half. Just one song by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman hits the mark in this retelling of Roald Dahl’s tale of four children who win golden tickets to Willy Wonka’s long-shuttered chocolate factory. What’s great about Act 2 is that the mother and three of the grandparents completely disappear, and little Charlie takes a backseat to the far more colorful brats and their parents. And most important, Borle as Willy Wonka occupies center stage and never lets go, holding court as he blithely dispatches one kid after another to apparent death. In the new “Groundhog Day,” Andy Karl makes you forget about Bill Murray in the film version. Borle does Karl one better: He makes us forget about both Johnny Depp and Gene Wilder.” – By Robert Hofler from The Wrap
