Great Scott! BACK TO THE FUTURE Musical to Land in West End Next Year; Workshops Set for Summer 2014 in LA, London
By: Jessica Showers Jan. 30, 2014
BACK TO THE FUTURE will be tuning its DeLorean time machine's "flux capacitor" to a different frequency when it travels to the West End in musical form next year.
According to the Daily Mail, BACK TO THE FUTURE will be adapted for the theatre just in time for the 30th anniversary of the film's release. Bob Gale, who penned the 1985 original, as well as its two sequels, is collaborating with the film's director Robert Zemeckis, theatre director Jamie Lloyd and producer Colin Ingram on the musical version.
"We met Brits, and we met Americans, but we decided on the Brits -- Jamie and Colin -- because they're seeing our material through slightly different cultural eyes," Gale told the Mail. Plus, BACK To THE FUTURE is automatically suited to become a musical because, "you've got a main character who wants to be a rock musician," Gale added. "The script stands on its own. It's a different version of the same story."
The BACK TO THE FUTURE musical will get two workshops directed by Jamie Lloyd - one in Los Angeles in July with Universal Stage Productions and Steven Spielberg's Ambin Entertainment in the audience; and the second in London in August.
The musical adaptation is set to feature the songs "The Power of Love", "Johnny B. Goode", "Earth Angel", and "Mr. Sandman", which all appeared in the film. The film's composer Alan Silvestri will work with Glen Ballard on new numbers for the stage version.
Also in the creative team are set designer Soutra Gilmour, lighting designer Jon Clark and illusionist Paul Kieve.
The 1985 movie starred Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown. It topped the box office that year and nabbed nominations from the Oscars and the Golden Globes. BACK TO THE FUTURE PARTS II and III soon followed in 1989 and 1990.
The movie centers on Marty, a teenage boy who accidentally gets sent back in time to 1955, where he meets his future parents in high school. When Marty's mother starts to fall for him instead of his father, Marty is forced to fix the course of history by causing them to fall in love or face the consequences -- he will no longer exist. And with help from the 'Doc', Marty has to find a way to return to 1985.
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