The award-winning musical, Oliver!, is set to hit the stage in Sudbury

Oliver!, based on the Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist, is coming to Sudbury's YES Theatre this Friday.

For more than 63 years, the musical has warmed hearts with songs such as Consider Yourself and Food, Glorious Food. The story follows Oliver Twist, an orphan who escapes from a workhouse and embarks on a journey through London.

"It's loved as this holiday classic, as this children's classic because there's a lot of levity, a lot of joy to it, all these incredible young actors who are on the stage. But at the same time, it does cross into some pretty dark parts of society," said Alessandro Costantini, the play's director.

Costantini added that Oliver! explores themes of domestic abuse, poverty and human connections.

"Those scenes are the most difficult ones to grapple with. However, shying away from them would do quite a disservice to the narrative," said Costantini.

"Intimate partner violence still exists today, so we wanted to actually shine a light on some of those things and make sure that we were representing it authentically."

Georgia Mitchell, who plays Oliver is 11 years old, and says the audience can take away multiple important lessons from the production.

"When this was written, there were [different levels of] people. There were the poor people and the rich people. I find with the poor people, everyone [thought] their life is probably horrible, but you can see like they had tons of fun," said Mitchell.

Gaia Dhatt, who plays the Artful Dodger — one of the story's pickpockets who introduces Oliver to the criminal Fagin — says the play explores the true meaning of home and the importance of connections.

"One thing that I've learned from the show is that connections can be found anywhere. You can find it within whoever, whenever and wherever. It's up to you to make those connections and to learn from other people and to grow with those people," said Dhatt. 

YES Theatre will stage the production beginning on Nov. 22 at 7 p.m. at the Sudbury Theatre Centre, where it will run  until Dec. 22.