First listen released for Nero musical starring Andrew Barth Feldman
You can hear Andrew Barth Feldman as Nero before a set has been lit.
A first-listen video has been released ahead of the London run, featuring Feldman performing “And Now He Hounds the Night” WhatsOnStage. A first listen, in theatre terms, is an early clip put out before previews to give the public a sense of the score. The news was reported on 14 October 2026.
The musical will play at Southwark Playhouse Elephant from 2 November to 5 December 2026. Its press night, the performance to which critics are invited for review, is on 6 November. The dates put the show in the building for just over a month in the run-up to Christmas.
Nero has book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik. In a musical, the book is the spoken story, the lyrics are the words that are sung, and the music is the score underneath them. Sater and Sheik are the duo behind the multi-award-winning Spring Awakening. Both writers are Tony Award winners.
The London production is directed by Lindsay Posner. It is produced by SeenSee Company and Park Myung Sung, with general management by Lambert Jackson, the office that handles the day-to-day business of a run.
The story stays with the young Nero before he became an infamous ruler. It explores his ambitions as an artist and performer. The action sits before his rise to power, rather than in the years of his reign.
Feldman plays the title role. The engagement will be his London stage debut, as first reported in July 2026 Playbill. Stephen Carlile plays Seneca. Sally Dexter plays Agrippina.
The London dates follow a long development. Nero debuted at the Powerhouse Theatre as part of the 2008 Powerhouse season. That staging played 11 to 13 July. A later revamped version received a Carnegie Mellon workshop that began on 14 March and built to a showing on 19 March.
What makes this stand out for theatre-goers is the chance to hear this writing partnership in a Roman key. Spring Awakening was rooted in 19th-century Germany and the frustrations of youth. Here Sater and Sheik turn to ancient Rome, and to a would-be performer at its centre, with Feldman’s voice as the first public clue to how it sounds.
