Today's New York Post reports that recent Tony-winner Adam Guettel, and Academy-award winning screenwriter William Goldman have teamed up to write a musical based on the 1987 film, The Princss Bride. Goldman wrote both the original novel, and the screenplay for the film version. No timetable is given for the musical's creation, but work on it is believed to have already begun. At the Tony Awards in June, when Guettel was asked about his next project, he said "I don't think I can legally say, but it's an adventure and there's a lot of swordfighting." Now, we know what he was referring to.
The Princess Bride, released in theaters in 1987 tells a tongue-in-cheek fairy tail of the beautiful Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright) and the dashing Wesley (Cary Elwes) who must overcome staggering odds to find happiness. Giants, swordsmen, six-fingered counts, murderous princes, Sicilians, pirates, rodents of unusual size and even death cannot stop true love from triumphing. Mandy Patinkin and Andre the Giant costarred in the film, which also featured appearances by Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Fred Savage, Peter Falk, Billy Crystal, Wallace Shawn and others.
In addition to The Light in the Piazza, Guettel wrote the music and lyrics for the musical, Floyd Collins, originally produced at Playwrights Horizons and for Saturn Returns: A Concert, which was originally produced at the Public Theater and recorded by Nonesuch Records under the title Myths and Hymns. He wrote the music for the New York Theatre Workshop production of John Guare's Lydie Breeze and collaborated with Guare on Love's Fire for the Acting Company. He scored the feature documentary, Arguing the World and the CBS documentary Jack. Four of his songs are featured on Audra McDonald's recording Way Back To Paradise. Guettel is the grandson of the legendary Richard Rodgers.
Guettel won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Score of a Musical for his lush score to The Light in the Piazza, which is currently playing at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre. Along with Ted Sperling and Bruce Coughlin, he also won for Best Orchestrations. In addition, the Florence-set musical was awarded 4 other Tonys--Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for Vicky Clark, Best Lighting Design of a Musical for Christopher Akerlind, Best Costume Design of a Musical for Catherine Zuber and Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Michael Yeargan.
William Goldman is an American novelist, playwright and two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter. Prior to a film career, he published five novels, and wrote three plays, all of which opened on Broadway to limited success. These included Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole and A Family Affair. In the 1980s he wrote a series of memoirs looking at his professional life on Broadway and in Hollywood (in one of these he remarked that in Hollywood "Nobody knows anything"), and wrote more novels. Adapting his novel The Princess Bride to the screen marked his re-entry into screenwriting. Goldman has won two Academy Awards: an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for All the President's Men. His other screenplay credits include Dreamcatcher, Hearts in Atlantis, The General's Daughter, Absolute Power, Maverick, and the original The Stepford Wives, among others.
