Far From Heaven Musical to Get Summer 2012 Debut in Williamstown

A previously announced musical adaptation of the 2002 film drama Far From Heaven will get a “preview production” at Williamstown Theatre Festival July 19-29. Featuring a “jazz-inflected” original score by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie (Grey Gardens) and a book by Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out), the show will be presented on the summer theater’s Main Stage, directed by Michael Greif (Next to Normal, Rent). No casting has been announced.

In Far From Heaven, Cathy Whitaker seems to be the picture-perfect wife and mother in 1957 suburban Connecticut. Roiling beneath the surface, secret longings and forbidden desires cause her world to unravel, with incendiary consequences. The film received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Actress for Julianne Moore and Best Original Screenplay for director Todd Haynes. The musical arrives in Williamstown via a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Playwrights Horizons for the development of new musicals in partnership with a regional theater, wholly within the nonprofit system from start to finish. (Presumably, an off-Broadway production will follow the Williamstown debut.)

Williamstown also announced that stage and screen star Blythe Danner has signed on for the world premiere of Lucy Boyle’s The Blue Deep, which will be presented on the Nikos Stage July 11-22, directed by Bob Balaban. The play centers on 26-year old Lila Miller and her mother, Grace (Danner). When Lila returns home to her family's exquisite Hamptons house and garden with only a plastic bag and a broken heart, there's no nurturing to be found, except as pertains to horticulture. No other casting has been announced.