Nicolas Cage to Star in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST on Broadway?

Michael Riedel reports in today's New York Post that Nicolas Cage is considering a Broadway box next year starring in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's next in a new production produced by Robert Cole and Fred Zollo who last produced the Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman production of A Steady Rain. 

Nicolas Cage has appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona (1987), The Rock (1996), Face/Off (1997), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Adaptation (2002), National Treasure (2004), Ghost Rider (2007), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), and Kick-Ass (2010). Cage, at age 32, became the fifth youngest actor ever to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas.

Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960's that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. The book was dramatized by Dale Wasserman and is based largely on Kesey's experiences as a volunteer working with mental patients.

Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned. Through the conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, the play explores the themes of individuality and rebellion against conformity, ideas that were widely discussed at a time when the United States was committed to opposing communism and totalitarian regimes around the world. However, Kesey's approach, directing criticism at American institutions themselves, was revolutionary for its time.

The play was first produced on Broadway in 1964, two years after the novel was published. The Broadway production starred Kirk Douglas as McMurphy, Gene Wilder as Billy Bibbit, and Ed Ames as Chief Bromden. Douglas retained the rights to make a movie version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for a decade, but was unable to find a studio willing to make it with him. Eventually, he gave the rights to his son Michael Douglas, who succeeded in getting the movie produced. By then, Kirk Douglas was deemed too old for the role of McMurphy, and the role was given to Jack Nicholson.