David Bowie Writing Songs For Man Who Fell To Earth Play
The Dame is involved in an off-Broadway production with the playwright behind Once, according to reports.
DAVID BOWIE IS set to write new songs for a theatrical production based on the story of The Man Who Fell To Earth. The Thin White Duke is collaborating with Irish playwright Enda Walsh, who wrote the West End hit Once, on an off-Broadway production titled Lazarus.
“I’m calling it music theatre, but I don’t really know what it’s going to be like.”
James Nicola
According to a theatre report in the New York Times – which admittedly surfaced nervously close to April 1 – the play will share plot elements with Bowie’s 1976 film and will feature several songs written especially for the production, plus some new arrangements of his older work.
The show is slated to open later this year at the New York Theater Workshop, with the venue’s artistic director James Nicola telling the paper: “It’s going to be a play with characters and songs — I’m calling it music theatre, but I don’t really know what it’s going to be like, I just have incredible trust in their creative vision. I’m really excited about it. These are three very different sensibilities to be colliding.”
The play will not retell quite the same story as The Man Who Fell To Earth, but the character of alien-turned-inventor Thomas Newton – played by Bowie in the film – will feature.
Lazarus will be directed by avant-garde Belgian director Ivo van Hove, who was apparently approached by Bowie himself to re-adapt Walter Tevis’s 1963 novel for the stage.
David Bowie has yet to comment… So in the meantime, here are his 100 Greatest Songs according to MOJO; maybe some of these will soon feature off-Broadway…
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