Kenny Wax MBE
Kenny Wax MBE has been working in the West End since 1989, first as an usher, then as a flyman, box office clerk, follow spot operator and on-stage crew and now operates at the epicentre of London’s theatre industry. He is delighted to have received an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours in recognition for his services to the theatre industry, having previously completed a six-year term as President and subsequently as Vice President of the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) – the trade organisation for the West End Theatre industry. He currently sits on the SOLT Board and Chairs the Finance and Strategy Committee.
Current productions include SIX the Musical, which plays to packed houses in the West End and on a UK tour, on Broadway where it won two Tony Awards, on a North American tour and in Australia. It recently played in Shanghai, Barcelona, Tokyo, Toronto, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Trieste and Zurich, having previously completed a run in Seoul. The studio album received ‘gold’ status and together with the Broadway cast album across various music platforms, the songs from the show have exceeded one billion streams. The SIX the Musical Live! capture, recently released in over 750 cinemas around the UK, makes it the highest screen count ever for event theatre eclipsing Taylor Swift and Beyonce and the highest opening day figure for a musical in the history of stage-to-screen captures.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare is running at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and will transfer to @sohoplace theatre in the West End. The Karate Kid: The Musical, based on the iconic 1984 film, begins a UK tour at New Wimbledon Theatre. In addition to these two brand-new musicals, he is co-producing the UK tour of The Choir of Man, the Chichester Festival Theatre production of Top Hat currently on a UK tour after a run at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Just For One Day (The Live Aid Musical) which will head out on a UK and Ireland tour in 2027 following a run at Shaftesbury Theatre and a sold out run at the Old Vic Theatre.
Notable shows include: the world premiere of Top Hat – winner of three Olivier Awards including Best New Musical (2013) and winner of the Evening Standard Award for Best Night Out (2012). Once on This Island –winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical (1995). The Worst Witch - winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Family Show in 2019, with Hey Duggee the Live Theatre Show winning the same award in 2023. Other productions nominated for Laurence Olivier Awards include stage adaptations of Dame Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather and Julia Donaldson’s What The Ladybird Heard.
In 2022, Kenny opened Identical, based on the book The Parent Trap by Erich Kastner. It received tremendous reviews for its try-out production and is awaiting a theatre for a West End transfer. The Company produced the first-ever UK tour of Bugsy Malone and a stage version of the much-loved book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt had a UK and international tour. Kenny also collaborated with New Vic Theatre from Stoke-on-Trent to produce Tom, Dick & Harry based on The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III and in 2023 collaborated with Derren Brown and his team to create Unbelievable, a show which ran for four months at the Criterion Theatre in the West End. Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, an 80-minute pop musical for families about influential women in history, won the UK Theatre Award for Best Show for Children and Young People (2022) and in 2024, toured the UK before completing a run at The Other Palace. Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s second musical, Why Am I So Single? ran at the Garrick Theatre and received rave reviews: four WhatsOnStage nominations and an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Musical (2025).