Sleepless a new Musical

Based on the movie 1993 “Sleepless in Seattle”

 

Sleepless the new musical, will have its world premiere (out 0f town) at Theatre Royal Plymouth, The Lyric in Plymouth United Kingdom 25th March 2017 with a later transfer to London’s West End. The Musical is based on the very successful 1993 movie Sleepless in Seattle, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan directed by Nora Ephron with story by Jeff Arch and Nora as screenplay. I know a lot of 1980’s and 90’s movies have been turned into vehicles for musicals, however many have been seen and loved by millions of theatregoers.  Just think of Ghost the Musical, Sister Act, The Bodyguard (UK), Dirty Dancing just to name a few, of course movies, books and plays have always been the source for many Broadway Musical and it seems smaller stories transfer well. However some books turned into musicals have just been to hard to follow and way to deep, just look at last years Doctor Zhivago a wonderful love story but how to tell this with the Russian revolution as the back ground and so many characters.

Sleepless in Seattle storyline After his wife Maggie passes away, Sam Baldwin and his 8-year-old son Jonah relocate from Chicago to Seattle to escape the grief associated with Maggie’s death. Eighteen months later Sam is still grieving and can’t sleep. Although Jonah misses his mother, he wants his father to get a new wife despite Sam having not even contemplated dating again. On Christmas Eve, Sam (on Jonah’s initiative) ends up pouring his heart out on a national radio talk show about his magical and perfect marriage to Maggie, and how much he still misses her. Among the many women who hear Sam’s story and fall in love with him solely because of it is Annie Reed, a Baltimore-based newspaper writer. Annie’s infatuation with Sam’s story and by association Sam himself is despite being already engaged. But Annie’s relationship with her straight-laced fiancé Walter is unlike her dream love life in the movie An Affair to Remember (1957). She even writes to Sam proposing they meet atop the Empire State Building.

No UK cast or London Cast as of August 2016..check back !

There has been an early production of “Sleepless in Seattle the Musical” at the Pasadena Playhouse 2013 starring Chandra Lee Schwartz and Martin Gleason, some credits on the new website feature some creative people from this production.

The musical, which has a book by Jeff Arch and a score by Ben Toth and Sam Forman, stays true to the plot of the movie for which Jeff had written the original story and co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay with Ephron and David S. Ward.

Pictures from 2013 Production

I will keep looking for more information on this Production and any chance of a Broadway Release.

Check out the official UK Website HERE