Summer 2004 - BMI.com

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since late last season. Producers are
now circling.
The musical itself has been developing
from the pens of Stone (1776,
Woman of the Year, My One and Only)
and Yeston for four years. The pair
wrote the Tony Award-winning musical
Titanic, and both contributed to the
musical Grand Hotel. Playbill On-Line
first reported about the Death project
in 2001. Stone died April 26, 2003, at
the age of 73. He won Tony Awards
for his books for Titanic, Woman of the
Year and 1776.
Death Takes a Holiday appeared on
Broadway in 1929, adapted from the
original Italian by Walter Ferris. Death
tells of the Grim Reaper visiting earth
to discover why people are so fearful
of him. Or, as Stone said in a Playbill
On-Line interview, “What can life be
that they cling to it so”
Death then becomes a houseguest at
a swanky nobleman’s home where an
engagement is being celebrated. And
that’s where he falls in love.
“It’s very lush and romantic and
amusing in many aspects, even
though it deals with a somewhat serious
subject,” Stone previously told
Playbill On-Line.
“Each time they remake it,” Stone
said of the film versions, “it’s farther
from the original. We’re keeping the
locale: Italy, just after the first World
War. It’s a small musical: 10 principals,
all of them important, no chorus.”
Playbill On-Line learned a July 2004
workshop is likely for the project.
British Leveaux is hot in the current
Broadway season: He staged the
Broadway revivals of Fiddler on the
Roof and Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers.
Yeston has been quoted as describing
the piece as “an intensely romantic
love story, deeply moving and life
affirming.”
At the opening night of Broadway’s
Assassins April 22, Yeston told Playbill
On-Line columnist Harry Haun,
“We’re going to do it on Broadway
next year. I’ve done the score, and the
book was written by Peter Stone. He
finished it completely and polished it,
right before he died. This will be
Peter’s 19th musical.”
HIGH FIDELITY
As reported by Ernio Hernandez in
Playbill Online:
Avenue Q producers Robyn Goodman,
Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey
Seller are attached to the developing
David Lindsay-Abaire, Tom Kitt
[Advanced] and Amanda Green
[Advanced] musical version of the
book-turned-film High Fidelity. The
producing trio have acquired the
rights from Disney to the Nick Hornby
novel as well as the Stephen
Frears-directed film which starred
John Cusack, according to Variety.
High Fidelity follows the story of a
record store owner who—when
things in his current relationship go
sour—revists his former relationships
to find where he went wrong. The
2000 film, which also starred Joan
Cusack, Jack Black, Tim Robbins,
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lisa Bonet and
Lili Taylor, reset the Hornby story in
Chicago. The musical will center the
story in New York.
Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire
(Kimberly Akimbo, Fuddy Meers) will
pen the book with music by composer
Tom Kitt (Debbie Does Dallas) and lyricist
Amanda Green (For the Love of
Tiffany).