Florence Welch’s Gatsby musical will premiere next year.
Did everyone else know that Florence Welch (of Florence + the Machine fame) was writing both music and lyrics for a Broadway-aimed musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby? I certainly didn’t, and I pride myself on knowing such things.
Apparently, Gatsby was first announced way back in April 2021 (just months after the rights to Fitzgerald’s opus entered the public domain, in case you were wondering), but now has a firm venue and firmish premiere date (sometime in 2024).
The musical—featuring music by Welch and Thomas Bartlett, lyrics by Welch, book by Martyna Majok, direction by Tony-winning Hadestown director Rachel Chavkin, and choreography by Moulin Rouge!‘s Sonya Tayeh—will be produced by the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, where future Broadway hits like Jagged Little Pill, Waitress, and Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 got their first run.
The Great Gatsby has been adapted for the stage on multiple occasions, the first coming in 1926, less than a year after the novel’s publication, and the most recent being Elevator Repair Company’s marathon production, Gatz, in 2010. It’s been turned into an opera, and a ballet, and, of course, several films of debatable quality, but never a musical.
Let’s hope Florence and her theatrical machine can bring some [checks notes] “Cosmic Love” to this new adaptation.
Nailed it.
