EXCLUSIVE: The stage adaptation of musical movie The Greatest Showman, which starred Hugh Jackman portraying the early life of entertainer P.T. Barnum, will have its world premiere in the British West Country city of Bristol, around March 2026, ahead of its launch in the West End and on Broadway.
Full of exotic beasts, bearded ladies, strapping giant strong men and dare-devil acrobats, along with the likes of Zendaya, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson and Zac Efron, the 20th Century film grossed $459M worldwide.
But, it’s fair to say, that audiences went giddy over the songs and the film’s embrace of its disparate characters who bonded as a family, rather than its storyline.
Songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who won a Golden Globe and a Grammy and received an Oscar-nomination for the 2017 film’s pop classic “This Is Me”, have written an additional five new songs to augment the hits they penned for the picture directed by Michael Gracey.
Those numbers include “All The Ones You Love,” Anne Quart, Disney Theatrical Group’s executive producer, assures me.
“All of the songs that people are excited about are all in the show,” she promises as she begins to tick them off one by one. There’s “The Greatest Show”, “A Million Dreams”, “Come Alive”, “The Other Side”, “Rewrite the Stars”, “Tightrope” and “From Now On”.
One of the new Pasek and Paul songs, which I’ve listened to, is a rousing, rallying anthem called “Show Goes On”, which will bring the curtain down at the end of act one.
The Greatest Showman Disney Theatrical Group Lauded director Casey Nicholaw, who won Tony Awards for his direction of The Book of Mormon, and for his choreography on Some Like It Hot, has been given the task by Disney Theatrical Group, led by managing director Andrew Flatt, Quart and Chief Creative Officer Thomas Schumacher, to inject his renowned show-stopping brio into the heart of The Greatest Showman. He will direct and choreograph. Book is by Tim Federle (High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, High School Musical: The Musical: Holiday Special). The show is being produced by Disney Theatrical and The Seelig Group, a producer of the movie. It’s the first 20th Century title to be adapted by Disney for the stage. The creatives have spent months fine-tuning the material. They held an extensive workshop in London last fall. Quart confirms the positive buzz I was hearing. “It was one of those spaces where you felt that thing, you feel when something special has happened,” she says. “And it was very much an indicator for us that certainly we have endless notes and work to do and cutting a song and removing a scene and all the things, but the bones are right and the structure’s good. So we’re feeling very hopeful.” The Greatest Showman will rehearse from late December or very early January and then head to the Bristol Hippodrome, a favourite tryout venue for Disney Theatrical ventures, where it will have its world premiere in March-ish. No official date has been set. I have it on the authority of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose LW Theatres group controls the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, that there’s an agreement in place for The Greatest Showman to go there after its tryout in Bristol. Casting for principal roles is well underway. Jackman, for starters, will not be reprising his screen role as Barnum. However, I was curious about Keala Settle who will forever be associated with the mammoth chart-topping “This is Me”. I remember her electrifying performance brought the house down at the Oscars. The actress often works in London, and plays the interfering Miss. Coddle, the Head Shiztress of Shiz University in the Wicked movie. I pressed Quart about whether Settle or anyone from the film would be in the show.She felt this would be unlikely. However, she clarified: “Look, we haven’t finished casting, so it’s hard. I can’t say anything for sure. But it isn’t our intention that anyone from the film will be in the musical.” Key casting has been ongoing for six months and it moves up a phase imminently with open auditions kicking off this month and next, in Dublin, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Exeter, Newcastle and London. Source link
