Florence Welch Pens Music And Lyrics For Forthcoming ‘The Great Gatsby’ Musical
Welch collaborated on the music with Oscar and Grammy Award nominee Thomas Bartlett.
A musical stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s legendary novel The Great Gatsby, A New Musical, has just been announced, with singer-songwriter and wordsmith, Florence Welch (Florence + the Machine) penning the music and lyrics.
Welch will be joined by Oscar and Grammy Award nominee Thomas Bartlett, who will be helping to write the music, Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok who’s writing the book, and Olivier Award nominee Rebecca Frecknall on board as director.
Frecknall is Associate Director at the Almeida Theatre in London. She also directed the critically acclaimed Summer and Smoke, which opened at the Almeida before transferring to the West End. The production won the 2019 Olivier Award for Best Revival, and Rebecca was also nominated for the Peter Hall Olivier for Best Director.
Meanwhile, Majok was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cost of Living (Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club). She is currently writing two musical librettos, two feature films, and developing an original series for HBO based on her play, Queens.
Regarding the musical, composer and lyricist Florence Welch said, “This book has haunted me for a large part of my life. It contains some of my favorite lines in literature. Musicals were my first love, and I feel a deep connection to Fitzgerald’s broken romanticism. It is an honor to have been offered the chance to recreate this book in song.”
Producers Amanda Ghost and Robert Fox added, “Florence’s passion for Gatsby and exceptional musical storytelling will bring this iconic love story to life in ways we have never experienced before. Martyna and Rebecca are two of the most exciting theatre artists of their generation and, together, this extraordinary team brings a thrilling new perspective to one of the most culturally significant books of all time. It’s been 100 years since The Great Gatsby was published and there could be no better time for a new musical adaptation of the greatest party America ever threw.”
While she’s written countless hit songs, Welch made her literary debut with the release of a book of poetry, Useless Magic, released in 2018. And her last studio release was High As Hope, was released the same year.
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