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Sting will be an Englishman in New York once more next summer when his 2014 Broadway musical, The Last Ship, gets a nine-performance run at the Metropolitan Opera House from June 9 through June 14.
The Grammy-winning frontman of The Police turned musical theatre songwriter will reprise his role as Jackie White in the musical, about life in the working-class seaside town of Wallsend.
Directed by Joe Mantello, the show premiered on Broadway in 2014 at the Neil Simon Theatre. It closed in January of the following year, after earning Tony nominations for Sting's score and Rob Mathes’ orchestrations.
As Time Out wrote in a review back then, "Sting’s rich, lyrically confident score is a genuine revelation: beautiful numbers that hint at influences from Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kurt Weill and Anglo-Celtic folk, but are still in his brooding, cagey voice. When the men weld sheets of steel while singing these anthems to drink, love, work or the sea, sparks fly everywhere."
The Met run will come at the end of an international tour in Amsterdam, Paris and Brisbane, which is set to star Sting, Declan Bennett, Lauren Samuels and Annette McLaughlin.
“I grew up in the shadow of a shipyard, watching thousands of men walk past my front door every morning to work there, and imagining that would be my destiny too," Sting said in a statement. "I dreamed of escaping—and I succeeded, traveling far and earning my living on some the world’s greatest stages—including the Metropolitan Opera House in 2010. But the further I got, the more that shipyard called to me. The Last Ship is my tribute to the people and the place that shaped me. Bringing it to the Met feels like a full-circle moment.”
Before the show docks at the Met, Sting will release an expanded edition of The Last Ship album on December 5, featuring five newly recorded tracks. Produced by Sting and Rob Mathes and mixed by Donald Hodgson and Robert “Hitmixer” Orton, the updated album offers a fresh look at the cult favorite musical.
Tickets are currently on sale right here.