Doug Hughes, who received a 2005 Tony Award for directing Doubt, will switch gears from plays to musicals to helm a 2007 Broadway-bound musical version of the romantic fantasy Ever After; the show will also mark the Broadway debut of songwriters Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich (Junie B. Jones, The Marcy and Zina Show, "Taylor, The Latte Boy").
Producer Adam Epstein (Hairspray, the upcoming fall '06 musical Crybaby), who bought the rights to the colorful fairy tale in December, described Ever After as "Cinderella
as not told by the Brothers Grimm -- no magic pumpkin, no talking mice,
no fairy godmother. It tells a real-life story about a heroine who
fights societal constraints against all odds," according to Variety. In the hit 1998 film, Drew Barrymore played a French Renaissance Cinderella who was aided in keeping her Prince by Leonardo da Vinci. Heisler and Goldrich joined the creative team after Hughes and Epstein conducted an "architecture-like
contest, inviting a number of songwriting teams to submit material." Julia Jordan (Walk Two Moons, Sarah, Plain and Tall, the libretto of "Mice" from 3hree) will pen the musical's book, while Tony Award-winner Rob Ashford (Thoroughly Modern Millie) has been enlisted to create the dances.
Hughes was drawn to Ever After because it's "like the musicals I loved as a kid when I had my head
stuck in the stereo listening to Rodgers and Hammerstein shows." He has back-to-back directing gigs lined up; first Richard Greenberg's A Naked Girl on the Appian Way at the Roundabout and then an upcoming revival of Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet. According to Epstein, a first reading of Ever After might occur in February, 2006, but the production itself is not likely to hit Broadway until fall 2007.
