Murder, Intrigue... REAR WINDOW Eyes 2017 Debut on the Great White Way

REAR WINDOW, adapted for the stage by Keith Reddin, and directed by Hartford Stage Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak, played for Connecticut audiences at Hartford Stage last fall, led by screen star Kevin Bacon. Now the show is eyeing a 2017 bow on Broadway, according to The New York Times.

The play is based on the same short story - "REAR WINDOW" by Cornell Woolrich - that inspired the Alfred Hitchcock film, a 1954 Academy Award nominee. Rear Window is the classic story of a man confined to his apartment who thinks he may have witnessed a murder in a nearby building.

"I grew up reading Cornell Woolrich," Tresnjak told the Times. "We went back to the story."

The director also elaborated on the changes in the stage version, saying, "There is no Grace Kelly character, and the character in the wheelchair is a completely different creation. There's an implication of mental illness, and he's not completely sure what he saw. Also, he has an object of desire, but it's another man."

Kevin Bacon played Hal Jeffries in the Hartford run, joined by McKinley Belcher III as Sam, Melinda Page Hamilton as Mrs. Thorwald and Gloria, John Bedford Lloyd as Boyne, Robert Stanton as Thorwald, and nine ensemble members.

In 2014, Tresnjak earned the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for Best Direction of a Musical for the Broadway production of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, which he debuted at Hartford Stage in 2012. He is helming the Broadway transfer of ANASTASIA this season, which also originally premiered in Hartford.

Reddin's plays include Frame 312, Life and Limb, All the Rage, and Rum and Coke. Also an actor (films Lolita, Revolutionary Road), Reddin has adapted several other works for the stage, including Bulgakov's Black Snow, Molière's The Imaginary Invalid, and Thornton Wilder's Heaven's My Destination.

Watch the trailer for the 1954 film below!

Photo Credit: Robert Stanton