Berkeley Rep's Monsoon Wedding Musical Is Broadway Bound

The new musical adaptation of Mira Nair's 2001 film Monsoon Wedding, about a culture clash between families amid an arranged marriage in India, has its eyes on Broadway after its current run at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, according to Forbes. The world premiere musical, which began previews on May 5 and opened on May 19, is set to run through July 2. 

"Now we've got a different world," said Nair in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, highlighting the timeliness of the story today. "When the film came out, it was almost the first portrait of globalization that people outside India had seen. Now, in the time of Trump, the doors are literally closing between borders. What we are bringing to you in Monsoon Wedding, the play, is a portrait of two things: an India that is complicatedly becoming a sort of real power, but also a portrait of America, since half our story is about America—an America that may not even let us in."

Featuring a book by Sabrina Dhawan, music by Vishal Bhardwaj and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, the Berkeley Rep production of Monsoon Wedding is directed by Nair. An exact Broadway timeline is currently unclear. Prior to the announcement of the Berkeley Rep premiere, the musical had been speculated to arrive on Broadway in 2014.