Aria Entertainment was founded in 2012 by Katy Lipson. In 2017, Katy was awarded the Best Producer award by the Off-West End Awards and is a recipient of a Stage One Bursary and Start Up Award. She took part in the first ever UK/US Producer Exchange in 2019 and was nominated for International Producer Of The Year in 2020 by the League Of Professional Women in New York. She made “The Stage 100” a list of the most influential people working in British Theatre in 2018, 2019 and 2020 for her work as producing artistic director of the Hope Mill Theatre.
Katy produced the UK Premiere Tour of The Addams Family in 2017 and the 50th Anniversary touring production of HAIR in 2019 which also ran at the London Vaults in 2017 and which she originally co-produced with Hope Mill Theatre in 2016, where she was the Producing Artistic Director for all in-house musicals from 2016 – 2019. HAIR (The Vaults) won the award for Best Off-West End Production at the 2018 WhatsOnStage Awards. She transferred a production of Pippin, to Southwark Playhouse, which was nominated for a record number of Off West End Awards and her production of Spring Awakening won the award for Best Regional show at the 2019 WOS awards. In 2012, the bicentenary year of Charles Dickens’ birth, she produced a revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood at the Arts Theatre, West End. This was followed by a transfer to the same venue in 2017 of new musical The Toxic Avenger following runs at The Edinburgh Festival’s Pleasance Theatre and the Southwark Playhouse.
Katy set up the From Page to Stage festival to support new musicals at all difference stages of development. In 6 years FPTS has given platform to over 100 new musicals. Many have gone on to have full productions and be licensed worldwide. Aria runs a full-time literary department for new musicals.
Other productions include: Mame (UK Tour), which was recently nominated for 7 WhatsOnStage Awards and starred Tracie Bennett; Unexpected Joy (Southwark Playhouse and York Theatre, Off-Broadway); It’s Only Life (Union Theatre); Mame, The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit, Rags, Putting it Together, The Return of the Soldier, Pippin, Spring Awakening, Aspects of Love, Little Women, The ToyBoy Diaries, Yank!, Parade and HAIR (Hope Mill Theatre); the London transfers of Pippin (Southwark Playhouse) and Yank! (Charing Cross Theatre); Rags and tick, tick…BOOM! (Park Theatre); Aspects of Love, The Toxic Avenger and Promises, Promises (Southwark Playhouse); Vanities The Musical (Trafalgar Studios); The House of Mirrors & Hearts (Arcola Theatre); See What I Wanna See and The Return Of The Soldier (Jermyn Street Theatre); The Adventures of Pinocchio, Lizzie and The Who’s Tommy (Greenwich Theatre), Marry Me A Little, Jerry’s Girls and Forever Plaid (St. James Studio); Bar Mitzvah Boy, That’s Jewish Entertainment, Bette Miller and Me, The Jewish Legends, The Great Jewish American Songbook and The MGM Story (Upstairs at the Gatehouse and The Radlett Centre).
Other current and recent projects include: The Last 5 Years (Southwark Playhouse); Zorro The Musical; Sammy (Lyric Hammersmith); The Addams Family (UK Tour) and Elton John: It’s A Little Bit Funny and Jewish Hollywood (Upstairs at the Gatehouse, The Radlett Centre).
Twitter: @AriaEnts
