A revival of the 1983 Willy Russell musical Blood Brothers will open Dec. 22, 1998 at the Luxor Theater in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Blood Brothers will be directed by Eddy Habema, who also directed Cyrano, the musical in The Netherlands and on Broadway, as well as the first Dutch production of Blood Brothers in 1989 when it was called Geboren Vrienden (Translation: Born Friends).

Joke Bruijs will play the role of Mrs. Johnstone for the first two months, after which she will share the part with Angela Groothuizen, making her debut in a musical. Other parts will be played by Paul Kribbe as the narrator, Danny de Munk (Marius in Les Miserables, Christian in Cyrano, de musical among many other roles) as Mickey and Frank Rigter as Eddie, a role he also played in the previous Dutch version.

Blood Brothers will tour through The Netherlands until June 1999.

Other musicals announced for the 1998-1999 season include the first Dutch language version of The King And I, by the Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen (Royal Ballet of Flanders), Ain't Misbehavin', a revival of the orginal Dutch musical Heerlijk duurt het langst (Translation: Lovely Last the Longest) by writters Annie M.G. Schmidt and Harry Bannink and a new production based on the life of Mahalia Jackson entitled The Mother of Gospel. Also the current Dutch language production of Annie will continue next season after a short summer break. -- By Maxim Bezembinder
Netherlands/Belgium Correspondent