Forty years. That's how long ago a major musical last played in the arena of Royal Theater Carré. This summer, that changes. Starting June 20, The Little Big Things, the lauded 2023 West End production, can be seen in the arena setting of the historic theater on the Amstel River. Not on stage, but in the arena itself, with the audience surrounding the actors. This gives the production a character that you just don't get in a regular theater.
The story is about Henry Fraser, a 17-year-old rugby player who becomes paralyzed after a diving accident and must rebuild his life. Not fiction, as it is his own story. Ed Larkin stars as Man Henry Fraser and does so again, following his breakthrough London West End production. Larkin is the first wheelchair user ever to star in a West End musical. That's not a detail on the sidelines; that's at the heart of what makes this production special. In addition to Larkin, Djavan van de Fliert and Joy Wielkens are on the floor, along with Edwin Jonker, Tessa Jonge Poerink, Lucia Zemene, Sarah-Jane Wijdenbosch and Jurriaan Bruinier.
Carré's arena setting reinforces what the musical is trying to do. You're not sitting at a distance watching someone fight for their life, you're in the middle of it. A live band plays in the same space, giving the whole thing even more of a shared moment feel. The music is by Nick Butcher, who also co-wrote the lyrics with Tom Ling. The book is by Joe White. Together they build a performance that has already been praised in London for its immediacy and the power with which the story is told.
Ed Larkin is the first wheelchair user ever to star in a West End musical. That's not a detail on the sidelines; that's at the heart of what makes this production special.
Carré has stood for more than a century. The theater has housed everything from circus to opera. But opening the arena to a musical of this stature, that's another choice. And an understandable one. The Little Big Things is exactly the kind of performance that calls for such a space: intimate, uncomfortably close, and precisely because of that, hard to forget.
Location
Royal Theater Carré: from circus tent to national stage on the Amstel River
Historic neo-renaissance theater, from Oscar Carré's circus to full programming with cabaret, concerts and dance
If you walk along the Amstel River and see the red letters Carré, you are looking at a piece of theater history. The neo-renaissance theater was opened in 1887 by circus director Oscar Carré as a permanent circus theater. So Circus Carré, with a huge auditorium built specifically for rings, horses and spectacular acts. That huge auditorium is still there ...
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