Verity Power cast opposite Alan Cumming in Pitlochry’s MY FAIR LADY

Verity Power will play Eliza Doolittle opposite Alan Cumming as Professor Henry Higgins in Maria Friedman’s new chamber staging of MY FAIR LADY at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland. The production is scheduled for the Auditorium from 21 November to 31 December 2026. It will close Cumming’s inaugural season as the theatre’s artistic director and bring Pitlochry’s 75th-anniversary programme to its final production.

WhatsOnStage reported Power’s casting on 8 September 2026. Pitlochry’s official event page had not yet been updated to name her when checked that day, so the casting is presently attributed to the publication’s report. In comments carried with the announcement, Power described her connection to Eliza and the prospect of playing the role opposite Cumming.

Friedman also used comments accompanying the report to explain her choice. Her response conveyed confidence in Power’s suitability for Eliza and in the performance relationship she could build with Cumming’s Higgins. As director, Friedman will shape that leading partnership within the chamber framework announced by Pitlochry, making her casting perspective part of the production’s creative direction.

The Eliza and Higgins relationship provides the musical’s defining power dynamic, shaped by language, social position and control. Casting Power establishes one side of that exchange beside a Higgins who has been attached to the production from the outset. Their pairing will be central to how the show handles those shifts in authority on stage, particularly within the closer focus promised by a chamber treatment.

Pitlochry’s chamber description points to a smaller-scale, more intimate treatment of the classic musical, but the available announcements do not define the format further. No orchestra size or orchestrations have been confirmed, and there is no detail yet about whether the scale lies chiefly in the company, musical forces or physical staging. No textual or musical revisions have been announced either. The chamber label should therefore be read as a staging concept, not as evidence of a new adaptation of the licensed book or score.

The production was first announced in November 2025, when Pitlochry unveiled its 2026 season. That initial release confirmed Cumming as Higgins, Friedman as director, the chamber concept and MY FAIR LADY’s place at the end of the programme. Power’s casting followed in September 2026, adding Eliza to a project whose director, leading man and broad scale were already public.

The staggered chronology has progressively narrowed the focus. The 2025 announcement established the production within Cumming’s season and set out its broad creative premise. The September casting report identifies the performer who will meet his Higgins across the musical’s central relationship, moving the story from a season overview towards the particular acting partnership at the centre of Friedman’s production.

MY FAIR LADY consequently carries two connected programme roles. It is the final title in Cumming’s first programme as artistic director, while also forming the closing production of the theatre’s 75th-anniversary year. Cumming occupies two positions in that context: the artistic director whose inaugural programme is concluding and the actor playing Higgins. Friedman has the separate responsibility for directing the staging, placing the finale at the intersection of Cumming’s institutional and onstage work.

The current official event page bills MY FAIR LADY as a Pitlochry Festival Theatre production presented with Sonia Friedman Productions. The initial season material placed the show within a wider relationship between the organisations, while the event page supplies the current production credit. That distinction is worth retaining because earlier materials described the relationship in broader terms; the latest billing should not be recast as a formally labelled co-production. Neither source confirms a future commercial life for the musical. The engagement remains a regional Scottish season at Pitlochry, not a West End run, and no onward London, Broadway, touring or Australian engagement has been announced.

The musical has a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. It is adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play PYGMALION and Gabriel Pascal’s PYGMALION film, and is being performed by arrangement with Music Theatre International. These credits establish the existing dramatic and musical source for the Pitlochry staging, alongside the separate chamber concept announced by the theatre.

The official page lists captioned, audio-described, BSL-interpreted and relaxed or dementia-friendly performances during December. Tickets were on sale and listed from £15 as of 8 September, although prices and availability can change. The running time remains to be confirmed. All performances in the announced season are scheduled for the Auditorium, keeping the confirmed engagement within Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

WhatsOnStage reports that further casting and creative-team announcements are still to come. The remaining company and complete creative, musical and design teams have not yet been disclosed, while the precise operation of the chamber format also remains unexplained. Those appointments and production details, rather than any unconfirmed transfer, are the next substantive developments expected before the Auditorium season begins.

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