Woody Allen adapts “Bullets Over Broadway” for musical

PanARMENIAN.Net - Woody Allen's 1994 film "Bullets Over Broadway" explored the travails of an aspiring playwright struggling to bring his creation to the Great White Way. And now, in a possible case of art imitating art, Allen is working on a musical adaptation of the film, with a Broadway premiere tentatively slated for 2013, The Wrap reported.

Allen will pen the book for the musical, which will feature existing music from 1920s, in which "Bullets Over Broadway" is set, producers Julian Schlossberg and Letty Aronson said.

"Bullets Over Broadway" tells the story of an aspiring young playwright newly arrived on Broadway in 1920’s New York who is forced to cast a mobster's talentless girlfriend in his latest drama in order to get it produced.

The original film, which starred John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly, was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and won one - in the Best Supporting Actress category, for Wiest's portrayal of alcoholic actress Helen Sinclair.

The "Bullets Over Broadway" adaptation is the latest development in Allen's decades-long relationship with Broadway, starting with 1966's "Don't Drink the Water," which Allen wrote.

Other Broadway productions involving Allen include 1969's "Play It Again, Sam" and 1981's "The Floating Light Bulb." In 2011, his one-act play "Honeymoon Hotel" was included in the larger piece "Relatively Speaking," which Schlossberg and Aronson - Allen's sister - also produced.

The musical's creative team, casting and performance schedule have yet to be announced.