Baz Luhrmann will bring Strictly Ballroom to the stage
ArtsBeat reports: Baz Luhrmann, the film auteur behind William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, is moving forward on a long-intended stage musical adaptation of his first movie, Strictly Ballroom, with hopes of bringing it to Broadway someday, Mr. Luhrmann said in a phone interview this week.
A 1992 romantic comedy inspired by Mr. Luhrmann’s ballroom dance classes while growing up in Australia, Strictly Ballroom emerged as an award-winning audience favorite at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to achieve cult status in the United States and Europe. The movie itself was based on a 20-minute play that Mr. Luhrmann wrote in drama school.
With two film projects in the works, Mr. Luhrmann said that the musical was likely to take at least a couple of years to develop, which his company Bazmark is doing with the entertainment group Global Creatures. But he is planning to hold a creative workshop on the music, lyrics, and book in December in Australia.
Mr. Luhrmann said it was far too soon to predict where the musical would be produced, but he said that he had learned from his one experience on Broadway — a re-imagining of Puccini’s La Bohème during the 2002-03 season — that a show needed to fix any deficiencies and build momentum during tryout productions before coming to New York.
A 1992 romantic comedy inspired by Mr. Luhrmann’s ballroom dance classes while growing up in Australia, Strictly Ballroom emerged as an award-winning audience favorite at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to achieve cult status in the United States and Europe. The movie itself was based on a 20-minute play that Mr. Luhrmann wrote in drama school.With two film projects in the works, Mr. Luhrmann said that the musical was likely to take at least a couple of years to develop, which his company Bazmark is doing with the entertainment group Global Creatures. But he is planning to hold a creative workshop on the music, lyrics, and book in December in Australia.
Mr. Luhrmann said it was far too soon to predict where the musical would be produced, but he said that he had learned from his one experience on Broadway — a re-imagining of Puccini’s La Bohème during the 2002-03 season — that a show needed to fix any deficiencies and build momentum during tryout productions before coming to New York.
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