Tommy Tune is the mastermind and artist behind some of Broadway’s most beloved musicals including Nine, Will Rogers Follies, My One and Only and Grand Hotel. Now The New York Post is reporting the director/choreographer may return to Broadway with one of two new musicals: the Olivier Award-winning Top Hat or Fifty Four Forever, a musical about Studio 54.
Top Hat is adapted from the 1935 Irving Berlin movie musical starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. The stage adaptation, which includes songs from the whole of Berlin’s musical catalogue, premiered on the West End in April 2012 and went on to win three 2013 Olivier Awards including Best New Musical. Tune is reportedly in London checking out the musical for a possible Broadway run at a Nederlander Theatre.
But Top Hat isn’t the only new musical on Tune’s plate. The nine-time Tony winner heads to Los Angeles this summer to work on another show Fifty Four Forever, which chronicles the rise and fall of Studio 54 club owner Steve Rubell. The disco musical, which includes scenes where Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol and more dance the night away on a long red carpet, premiered at Miami’s Jerry Herman Ring Theatre in 2011. The reworked version of Fifty Four Forever will open in L.A. this fall, and word is if it can hustle and sparkle, the Nederlanders may bring that glitzy musical to Broadway.
Sounds like a fine race of Tune vs. Tune.