Cheer Up Charlie - You're coming to Broadway

Mendes Making Willy Wonka Broadway Musical

Hairspray Team To Help Out
BROADWAY MAGAZINE – If you want to view paradise…multiple reports today that Sam Mendes is working on a Broadway musical version of the Roland Dahl novel Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Charlie has found life on screen in the classic musical Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder, and also as a Tim Burton adaptation bearing the Charlie moniker and starring Johnny Depp.
The Wilder film feature both a witty script by Dahl which gives an edge to Wonka and a script peppered with brilliant classical allusions and quotations from the likes of Shakespeare, Horace, William Allingham, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Keats, Lewis Carroll, and many more. For an exhaustive and inspired look at the classical associations click here.
Added to the film’s brilliant script are music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. With songs like “Candy Man,” “Pure Imagination,” “I’ve Got A Golden Ticket,” and the Oompa Loompa songs—the 1971 film remains one of the most brightly colored yet darkly entertaining delights in the history of movie musicals.
While Mendes has enlisted Hairspray’s Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman for the score of the new musical version, let’s hope the creative team has the sense to retain some of the songs and spirit that made the 1971 film so remarkable. Remember just this week Shrek The Musical finally added the song “I’m A Believer” to the finale in a nod to audiences disappointment with its absence, no doubt.