The Woman in White to Land on Broadway for 11/10/05 Opening
The Woman in White opened to mixed reviews in London. Michael Billington of The Guardian said: "Not even Andrew Lloyd Webber's best score in years and Trevor Nunn's visually vibrant production can disguise the fact that this show is saddled with an impossible book… You can't expect a musical to reproduce the novel's innovative narrative technique in which the story is told from multiple perspectives. But what you can expect is a musical to respect its source."
Freely adapted from Wilkie Collins's Victorian thriller, The Woman in White centers on a dashing young man, employed as the art tutor to two devoted sisters, who is stranded at a remote railway cutting. Out of the darkness looms a woman, a mysterious figure dressed in white, desperate to share a chilling secret. He and the sisters soon find themselves trapped in a web of betrayal and greed, the victims of a seemingly flawless crime. Together they will need all their resourcefulness and courage to outwit a hugely charismatic and ingenious villain. As the plot twists and turns, low villainy vies with high romance in a world where nothing is as it first appears and where it is impossible to know who to trust.
The musical has been adapted for the stage by Charlotte Jones Humble Boy with music by Lloyd Webber and lyrics by David Zippel City of Angels, The Goodbye Girl. The West End production of The Woman in White stars Michael Crawford and Maria Friedman and is directed by Nunn, who will also helm the New York produciton.
The Woman in White will play at a Nederlander Theatre on Broadway. The most likely candidate for the show is the Minskoff, currently home to Fiddler on the Roof, which has not yet announced a closing date.