Sunday, July 26, 2009
Robin and the 7 Hoods Musical News
Variety reports that Rupert Holmes has joined the creative team as book writer of Robin and the 7 Hoods, a new musical adaptation of the Warner Bros' 1964 Rat Pack film. The musical is aiming for a West Coast run next summer before heading to Broadway as part of the 2010-11 season. Casey Nicholaw (The Drowsy Chaperone) is set to direct and choreograph. Lead producers are Dennis Mastro, Bruce Charet, Billy Campbell and Dennis Farina. Barry Brown is executive producer and John McDaniel is musical supervisor.Robin and the 7 Hoods revisits attitudes of the time when the movie was made and old culture intersected with the swinging new world of the sexual revolution. It will feature standards by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen like "My Kind of Town," "Come Fly With Me," "All the Way" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head."
The film transported the Robin Hood legend to Prohibition-era Chicago, with Frank Sinatra as a North Side racketeer who becomes a local hero. Holmes replaces previously announced writer Peter Ackerman on the project.
Winner of Tonys in 1986 for book and score for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Holmes' work was most recently seen on Broadway in Kander & Ebb's Curtains. He wrote the book for the new musical The First Wives Club, currently in previews in its Broadway tryout at San Diego's Old Globe; and is working with composer Marvin Hamlisch on the musical adaptation of The Nutty Professor, which Jerry Lewis is slated to direct. That show also is eyeing a Broadway premiere in the 2010-11 season.
No theater has yet been announced for the summer 2010 tryout run
