
Summoning Sondheim
Summoning Sondheim is a musical theatre character comedy séance that uses the power of musical theatre to summon us theatre kids’ Lord and Savior, Stephen Sondheim.

Project
Summoning Sondheim

Grace O'Keefe (Musical Comedy Award Best Newcomer 2024) and Jordana Belaiche (West End Credits: Little Cosette in Les Misérables, Jane in Mary Poppins, yes, really) host this silly little spooky séance. Their goal? To summon Stephen Sondheim.
Featuring original book and music by Jordana and Grace (with an occasional Sondheim parody, of course), the show is a vehicle for elevating new voices in musical theatre while venerating Sondheim. This love letter to Sondheim is a testament to his legacy as both one of the world’s greatest artists and as a mentor to so many writers, exploring what it means to make art (after all, art isn’t easy!), the lack of a female musical theatre canon and how we “Summon Sondheim” every time we’re in a theatre.

A note from Grace:
I've been in love with Stephen Sondheim since I was 13 years old (at least!) I'm very lucky to have three letters from a Theatre God and I'm even luckier to be doing this show with this incredibly talented team where we get to celebrate Sondheim's work, mind and magic.
Writing is magic. Sondheim was a rare master who believed in teaching his craft. This show is about continuing his legacy by empowering new voices in musical theatre through divine feminine power (aka witchcraft).
Steve's biggest regret in life was not having children, but my biggest hope is that Summoning Sondheim shows him that he has generations of children in this world making art.
If you want to join our truly magical journey, please consider backing our campaign.
We Believe in Steve,
Grace xxx

We just had a sold out Work in Progress run at a Pinch of VAULT. We have a full hour of material, but are looking to refine the piece ahead of our Edinburgh run this summer. We’re currently adding more original music, and more magical elements to the show.
In preparation for a two week run at Just the Tonic, we are developing the show over multiple performances in the next five months. At Brighton Fringe, we are performing at Bar Broadway on May 17th, 18th and 24th. On June 14th, we’ll be at the New Wimbledon Theatre. We plan to perform at various cabaret/variety open mics between then and August, including The Queens of Cups own variety night, New Moon Monologues at the Museum of Comedy on July 6th. As part of Camden Fringe, we’ll be performing at the Museum of Comedy on August 3rd and 4th, and then at the West End Comedy Club on the 5th. We are performing at Just the Tonic from August 13th-26th at 4pm as part of Edinburgh Fringe.
The Queens of Cups are coming off of two sell out runs at EdFringe with their show Bad Teacher at Underbelly and we will be returning to EdFringe this year with Summoning Sondheim.
The Edinburgh Fringe is an incredible place to make connections and spread the word about your show, but it unfortunately is incredibly costly. Despite selling every ticket in our 115-seater last year for our entire run, we actually lost money at our last Edinburgh Fringe. This year, we've managed to cut costs by finding affordable accommodation (thank you Shirley from Theatre Digs Booker), but our budget is still around £4000.

If you love Sondheim, witchcraft or making art, we'd love for you to be a part of Summoning Sondheim's journey. We have a selection of rewards with new merch coming soon and we would love to have your support on our path to Edinburgh Fringe!
