Luke Brady to Play Title Role in Disney's Hercules in London

Luke Brady will play the title role in Disney's Hercules in London’s West End. The stage musical based on the 1997 animated film begins performances at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on June 6, 2025 with an official opening set for June 24.

In London, Brady’s stage credits include musicals Assassins, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and The Prince of Egypt, as well as Shakespearean roles in As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare’s Globe.

Director Casey Nicholaw said, “In a search that took us across the globe, we have found our perfect hero in Luke, and I look forward to working with him over the coming months to develop the much-loved character of Hercules."

Hercules features music by Alan Menken, lyrics by David Zippel and a book by Robert Horn and Kwame Kwei-Arma. The production is co-choreographed by Tanisha Scott.

“Hercules was thrilling when I was first working on it in the mid-90s and has only grown more exciting and amazing with each passing adaptation,” said Menken in a statement. “The new songs David Zippel and I have added for our upcoming production in London have deepened the emotional impact and further developed the stylistic panache. The humor and overall message of the script by Robert Horn and Kwame Kwei-Armah have brought our story to wonderful new heights and supercharged the underlying message of this story. And, when it comes to bringing all of this to life on stage, there’s no one even close to Casey Nicholaw in creating theatrical magic.”

Horn said, “Kwame and I could not be more excited to bring our very different and unified styles of comedy and storytelling to this magical, mythical tale. And with this iconic score! We hope you’ll laugh and feel all the feels watching it as much as we did working together on it. We laughed so hard, we both got abs.

Kwei-Armah said, “Robert and I have had such a joyous time learning about each other and laughing together as we have shaped the story for the musical and that gets right into the DNA of what this show is: laughter, love and a quest for self-discovery that offers so much for audiences of all ages.”

A stage version of Hercules premiered at the Delacorte Theater in 2019, with a different creative team: its book was by Kristoffer Diaz and it was directed by Lear deBessonet. A revised version, with a book by Horn and Kwei-Armah, was presented at Paper Mill Playhouse in 2023, with deBessonet directing.