My Fair Lady at Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady comes to Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 21 November to 31 December 2026, playing in the theatre's main Auditorium. Maria Friedman directs, with Alan Cumming as Professor Henry Higgins and Verity Power as Eliza Doolittle. Pitlochry Festival Theatre presents the production in association with Sonia Friedman Productions.

My Fair Lady at Pitlochry Festival Theatre 2026

This is the closing production of Alan Cumming's first season as the theatre's Artistic Director, in the year Pitlochry Festival Theatre marks 75 years. The run opens on Saturday 21 November at 7pm and ends with a 2pm matinee on Thursday 31 December, so the musical plays right through the festive season in Perthshire.

Alan Cumming as Professor Higgins

Alan Cumming takes the role of Professor Henry Higgins, the phonetics professor at the centre of the story. As well as leading the cast, he runs the theatre as its Artistic Director, and My Fair Lady brings his opening season to a close.

Opposite him, Verity Power plays Eliza Doolittle. A Glaswegian actor, she trained at ArtsEd and at the Dance School of Scotland at Knightswood Secondary. Her credits include We Are Lady Parts and How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at Southwark Playhouse.

My Fair Lady cast: Pitlochry 2026

The principal company also includes Martin Ball as Colonel Pickering, Juliet Cadzow as Mrs Pearce, Alex James-Hatton as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, Julie Legrand as Mrs Higgins and Alexander Newland as Alfred P Doolittle.

The ensemble is Loren Anderson, Mairi Barclay, Zachary Barlow, Daisy Barnett, Robert Donnelly, James Probert, Thomas Sutcliffe, Scott Waugh and Lizzie Wofford, with C J Benoiton and Reuben Khan as onstage swings. The full company of 18, including understudy covers, is listed in the cast section of this page.

The story and the songs

My Fair Lady is based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion. Phonetics professor Henry Higgins takes on Eliza Doolittle, a flower seller, and coaches her to change the way she speaks, with consequences for both of them.

Alan Jay Lerner wrote the book and lyrics and Frederick Loewe composed the music, adapting Shaw's play and Gabriel Pascal's motion picture Pygmalion. The original production was directed and staged by Moss Hart and opened on Broadway in 1956, and a film version followed in 1964. Pitlochry performs the musical by arrangement with Music Theatre International.

Creative team

Maria Friedman, who directed the Tony Award winning Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along, leads the creative team. Design is by Tim Hatley, choreography by Ashley Nottingham and lighting by Neil Austin. Joel Fram is musical supervisor, Ben Kubiak is musical director and Alexios Priftis provides the orchestrations. Casting is by Natalie Gallacher CDG for Pippa Ailion and Natalie Gallacher Casting.

Dates, running time and accessible performances

My Fair Lady runs from Saturday 21 November to Thursday 31 December 2026. Evening performances are mostly at 7pm and matinees at 2pm, with an earlier 6pm evening performance on Friday 27 November. There are no performances from 25 to 28 December. The running time is to be announced by the venue, and so is the age guidance.

The theatre has scheduled accessible performances across December:

• Captioned: Wednesday 9 December at 2pm and Thursday 17 December at 7pm
• Audio described: Thursday 10 December at 7pm and Wednesday 16 December at 2pm
• BSL interpreted: Friday 11 December at 7pm
• Relaxed and dementia friendly: Sunday 20 December at 2pm