GHOST Musical Bound for UK Stage, Warchus Directs
By: Eddie Varley Mar. 06, 2009
Matthew Warchus is to direct a musical version of the Academy award winning film Ghost, scheduled to open in the West End in 2010. Music and lyrics are by Grammy® award winning Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard, Oscar® winning Bruce Joel Rubin will adapt his original screen play for the stage and write lyrics, set and costumes designs are by Rob Howell and the musical supervisors will be Christopher Nightingale and Tesse Gohl. Ghost is produced by David Garfinkle of New York’s HELLO Entertainment and London producer Colin Ingram in association with Paramount Pictures. Further information about this production will be announced at a later date.
Ghost is a timeless fantasy about the power of love. Walking back to their apartment one night, Sam and Molly are mugged, leaving Sam murdered on a dark street. Sam is trapped as a ghost between this world and the next and unable to leave Molly who he learns is in grave danger. With the help of a phony storefront psychic, Oda Mae Brown, Sam tries to communicate with Molly in the hope of saving and protecting her.
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film of 1990, Ghost won numerous awards worldwide and is one of the biggest grossing films in the UK. It starred Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Tony Goldwyn and Whoopi Goldberg and was directed by Jerry Zucker. Bruce Joel Rubin's script won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and Whoopi Goldberg won the Oscar® for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The film's iconic love scene at a potter's wheel was famously performed to The Righteous Brother's Unchained Melody.
Dave Stewart said: “I am delighted to be working with my long time collaborator Glen Ballard on this musical adaptation of Ghost. We are having an amazing time bringing some of our own musical sounds and styles to the score.”
Bruce Joel Rubin said: “Writing the movie Ghost has been, from conception to winning the Oscar®, the most joyful experience of my film career. The opportunity to give it new life as a musical, to see Molly and Sam come alive again, to see their souls soar with song, is proving to be one of the great experiences of my life. Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard have helped me reshape my words and added brilliant new lyrics of their own. We have become true collaborators. I am thrilled to be working with two of the most celebrated musicians of our time. Matthew Warchus brings a level of insight and invention to the play that excites me. I can see Ghost reborn through his eyes. Watching it emerge through Matthew’s vision, I know, is going to be a great gift to people who love the film and a true present to those who have never seen it.”
Matthew Warchus said: “Ghost was a landmark film. An unexpected combination of supernatural thriller and romance entwined. It is the kind of powerful, direct and uplifting story which lends itself well to being reborn as a musical. And the melodic strength and exciting driving energy of Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard's music will, I believe, provide exactly the right added engine to the narrative, playing a key role in refreshing the source material for a new audience. From a director's point of view the project calls for a wonderful mix of the very contrasting elements which have always excited me - illusion, spectacle, comedy and raw emotion. In the central triangle of two young lovers, separated by death, and the brilliantly comic reluctant psychic who brings them together, there is an opportunity for some wonderful acting performances by outstanding singers. It is an exciting challenge and we have assembled a very strong artistic team to achieve this goal.”
Described by Bob Dylan as "a fearless innovator," Dave Stewart has built a repertoire of remarkable songs that have been performed by some of the most influential musicians of our time. In 1999, Dave Stewart, along with his Eurythmics partner, Annie Lennox, was honored with The Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brit Awards after having sold over 75 million albums with hits like Here Comes The Rain Again, Who’s That Girl, Would I Lie To You, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves (with Aretha Franklin) and Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). Stewart was recently presented with the Legend in Songwriting award from the City of Hope, and has collaborated, both as a songwriter and producer, with several of today’s biggest stars in music. Stewart recently released Dave Stewart Songbook, Vol. 1, that includes his hits with Tom Petty (Don’t Come Around Here No More), No Doubt (Underneath It All), Mick Jagger (Old Habits Die Hard) which won a Golden Globe for Best Song in the film Alfie and Celine Dion (Taking Chances). In his new capacity as Nokia’s Change Agent, Stewart is charged with leading the Artists Advisory Committee which ensures the artist’s point of view is represented in the “new world.” In conjunction with his company, Weapons of Mass Entertainment, Stewart is poised to rethink, reshape and reinvent music, film, television, books, theatre, new media and eventually the entire creative process.
Six-time Grammy® award winner Glen Ballard is one of popular music’s most accomplished producers/songwriters and arrangers. He has sold more than 150 million records worldwide, and has worked with a diverse array of the finest singers and artists in the business, from Aretha Franklin to Van Halen and Aerosmith to Michael Jackson. One of Ballard’s biggest successes involved chart-topping, multi platinum album Jagged Little Pill (33 million worldwide, four Grammys –including Album of the Year) which Ballard co-wrote and produced for Alanis Morissette, and was named Best Album of the Decade (1990s) by Billboard magazine. Ballard has most recently had success writing hit songs for film, including the Grammy® winning and Oscar® nominated Believe for Polar Express, Ordinary Miracle for Charlotte’s Web, and A Hero Comes Home for Beowulf. Ballard’s newest chapter of this vast musical legacy is his recent work in musicals.
Bruce Joel Rubin won an Academy Award for his original screenplay, Ghost. He has written numerous other screenplays including Jacob’s Ladder, Deep Impact, Stuart Little 2, The Last Mimzy and, the soon to be released, The Time Traveller’s Wife. He also wrote and directed My Life. Rubin graduated New York University in 1965 where he majored in motion picture production and direction. He was an assistant film editor at NBC news in the mid-sixties and hitch-hiked around the world in 1966-67. He was also Curator of Film at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York where he helped establish a program called The New American Filmmakers Series. In addition to his film career, Rubin has been a student and teacher of meditation for the past forty years.
InterNational Theatre Director Matthew Warchus’ many theatre credits include Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests for the Old Vic - which he will also direct on Broadway in April, God of Carnage which opens on Broadway later this month, Boeing-Boeing in the West End, on tour in the UK and on Broadway (where it won a Tony for Best Revival), Endgame at the Albery Theatre, the multi award-winning Art in London, on Broadway and in Los Angeles,True West for the Donmar Warehouse, The Winter’s Tale, The Unexpected Man and Hamletfor the Royal Shakespeare Company, Buried Child, Life x 3 and Volpone for The National Theatre. In addition he has directed the following musicals - Tell Me on a Sunday, Our House(which won the Olivier Award for Best Musical) and The Lord of the Rings in the West End andFollies on Broadway. His opera productions include Cosi Fan Tutte, Falstaff for English National Opera and Troilus and Cressida for Opera North.
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