Start spreading the news: an adaptation of Scorsese’s New York, New York is coming to Broadway
The show will feature original songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb with additional lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Aux News New York, New York
If you were to create a modern Broadway musical in a lab, the formula would probably go something like this: It would need to be based on a beloved movie (i.e. Moulin Rouge! The Musical or the upcoming production of The Devil Wears Prada), chronicle down-on-their-luck folks just trying to make it in the Big City, and it of course–of course–needs to somehow feature Lin-Manuel Miranda.
A newly announced production loosely based on Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film New York, New York appears to be just that. (Yes, the film that originally featured that song. New Yorkers, get ready to hear it on three times as many yellow cab TVs as you already do now.) Per Deadline, the musical will begin previews in March 2023 with an opening night sometime in April. Tony and Olivier Award winner Susan Stroman (Crazy For You, The Producers) will choreograph and direct.
New York, New York will feature numbers originally composed for the film by famed duo John Kander and the late Fred Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret). Lin-Manuel Miranda is also on board to write additional lyrics with Kander. No word yet on whether those tracks will feature his signature sound, but an unnamed source that Deadline referred to as a “Broadway powerhouse” said that the show will definitely feature “a big band, big cast and show-stopping dance numbers.”
This is a very loose adaptation; reportedly, the main characters originally portrayed by Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro will not appear in the production at all. The show will still be set in postwar 1946, but the story will instead focus on “a city in recovery.” This sounds like ripe territory for an overarching metaphor about the very same city in recovery after certain events of 2020, but it remains to be seen whether the show will modernize its source material or play it straight.
Regardless, this sounds like one of the most Broadway Broadway shows to hit the Great White Way in years. Per Deadline’s unnamed source, the show is “profoundly beautiful and special… It’s about this city; this social experiment of people from all walks of life. Simply put, it’s about New York.”
6 Comments
How are we going to crowbar “Gimme Shelter” into this?!
It will almost certainly play over the montage of everyone getting whacked.
New Yorkers to make play about New York to be shown in New York to New Yorkers sounds like local news, to me.
but the real star of the show, is the city itself.
to make the play without Minelli’s character, when she sang most of the songs and they reflected her story arc, seems really ridiculous to me.
Wow we’ll have this and the second Joker movie both redoing New York, New York simultaneously.