Company star Rosalie Craig to host Sondheim competition

Company star Rosalie Craig to host Sondheim competition

Rosalie Craig, star of Marianne Elliott's smash-hit West End production of Stephen Sondheim and George Firth's Company, will be hosting this year's Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year competition on 8th June at the Sondheim Theatre.

Rosalie is no stranger to Sondheim fans. She wowed audiences as Bobbie in the gender-reversed Company in London's West End, having previously played Marta in Daniel Evans' production at the Sheffield Crucible (2011). She featured as the Beggar Woman in the Coliseum's 2015 semi-staged version of Sweeney Todd, and starred in Anyone Can Whistle at the Jermyn Street Studio Theatre, London, in 2010, playing Nurse Fay Apple opposite Issy van Randwyck's Mayoress Hooper.

Rosalie is the latest in a star-studded line-up of hosts for this prestigious competition, among them Bonnie Langford, Hannah Waddingham, Jenna Russell, Julian Ovenden, Janie Dee and Alex Young - the first host to have won the competition as a student.

SSSSPOTY 2025 is the 17th annual student performance competition produced by The Stephen Sondheim Society. It will be held at 3pm on Sunday 8th June at the Sondheim Theatre (currently home to Les Misérables) in London's Shaftesbury Avenue, and will be Directed by Hannah Chissick with Musical Direction from Nigel Lilley (currently conducting the orchestra for Here We Are, Sondheim's last work, opening shortly at the National Theatre). Society Patron and Olivier winner Jenna Russell also makes a welcome return to the competition, this time in her capacity as Acting Chair of Judges, covering for regular Chair Edward Seckerson, who this year is indisposed.

"SSSSPOTY is the jewel in the our crown," says the Society's Chair Craig Glenday. "It's a glorious celebration of Stephen Sondheim, who would've turned 95 this year, as well as a wonderful West End showcase for 12 of the UK's finest musical-theatre students." This year, more than 330 students (studying in the UK but hailing from around the world) applied for the competition, with 80 auditioned in person by Nigel and Jenna at the live heats in the Royal Academy of Music last weekend. The final 12, plus two reserves, have now been selected and will sing a Sondheim song, plus - at Sondheim's insistence - a new/recent work, once again sourced from the catalogue at NEW UK MUSICALS. There will also be performances from previous winners, guest singers and an ensemble from the National Youth Music Theatre (NYMT). The Finalists and Judges will be announced shortly.

To book, visit the Sondheim Theatre - tickets start at just £21.75.

Rosalie Craig

Rosalie’s most recent work includes playing the lead in Sally Wainwright’s forthcoming series Riot Women for

BBC1. Other notable recent television work includes The Hack (ITV), Moonflower Murders (BBC), The Serpeant Queen (STARZ), The Tower (ITV) and 1899 (NETFLIX).

On film, her recent work includes Sophie Barthes’ acclaimed The Pod Generation and Julian Jarrold’s Sulphur & White.

On stage, Rosalie is perhaps best known for her Oliver Award-nominated performance as Bobby in

Marianne Elliott’s multi-award winning West End production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company.

She was also nominated for an Oliver Award for the title role in Tori Amos’s The Light Princess

at the National Theatre. Her other extensive work in the theatre includes London Road, As You Like It, The Threepenny Opera, Hex, Table and Wonder.Land (all for the National Theatre), City of Angels, The Vote and Becoming (all for the Donmar Warehouse) and in the West End, Sam Mendes and Jen Butterworth’s The Ferryman.

Rosalie trained at Rose Bruford College and was made a Fellow of that institution in 2016.