Kelli O'Hara to Lead The Bridges of Madison County Musical at Williamstown Theatre Festival

Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman’s musical adaptation of the best-selling novel The Bridges of Madison County will premiere in August 2013 at Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. The new musical will reunite South Pacific and The Light in the Piazza director Bartlett Sher and leading lady Kelli O’Hara. Sher and O’Hara participated in previous readings of the musical. No exact dates, production team or further casting has been announced. As of now, the show has no plans to move to Broadway.

Based on the 1992 book by Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County features a score by Brown and book by Norman. Set in 1965, The Bridges of Madison County tells the story of photographer Robert Kincaid and his life-changing, four-day love affair with Iowa farm wife Francesca Johnson. The novel was made into a film in 1995 starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, who also directed.

O'Hara currently stars in Broadway’s Gershwin musical Nice Work If You Can Get It. She received a Tony nomination for Nice Work as well as for South Pacific, The Pajama Game and The Light in the Piazza. She has also appeared on Broadway in Dracula, Sweet Smell of Success, Follies and Jekyll & Hyde.