It's one big girls' night out at the theatre

We have read chick lit and watched chick flicks; now women are queuing up for a stream of female-friendly dramas on the stage. Theatre is awash with shows appealing particularly to women, many based on popular novels and films, and more are in the pipeline. Women are responding in their droves, often on a girls' night out.

Crowd-pleasers include the musical Legally Blonde, which opened in January and is based on the Reese Witherspoon film, and the Abba-inspired Mamma Mia!, which went from the stage to the big screen. Bridget Jones: The Musical is in development, with author Helen Fielding adapting her chick lit phenomenon and Lily Allen writing the songs.

Dirty Dancing, inspired by the 1987 film, smashed West End records when it took £11m in advance sales. Ghost: The Musical, based on another popular Patrick Swayze film, opens next year. Grease has played to more than 1.25 million people – approximately three-quarters of them women – since returning to the West End three years ago.

Arlene Phillips is choreographing Flashdance: The Musical, an adaptation of the 1983 film about a female welder who loves to dance, which previews from September. "I don't think it's a conscious 'we are going to do chick theatre'," she said. "It just happens to be that there is an explosion of those musicals around and, fortunately, it is the women audiences who go back again and again that are keeping these musicals on in the West End." She added theatre had changed, with audiences now including hen nights and groups of women screaming for the show's stars.

"When, for instance, Grease first opened, it was very much a traditional theatre audience coming to see it," explained the So You Think You Can Dance judge, who also choreographed that musical. "It was families or teenagers. You didn't get, as we do now, huge parties. Sometimes on the Friday night and Saturday night, the theatre is packed with screaming crowds of women cheering on the dancing. That is something new."

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