Houdini Musical, by Elfman, Yazbek and Andersen, Coming in 2010

Architect and designer David Rockwell will make his Broadway producing debut with the new original musical Houdini, which is aiming for a spring 2010 opening. Rockwell will partner with The Color Purple producer Scott Sanders on the show and will also design the sets. Jack O'Brien, who first worked with Rockwell on the Broadway musical hit Hairspray, will direct.

Houdini will feature music by screen composer Danny Elfman an Oscar nominee for the scores of Good Will Hunting, Men in Black and Big Fish and composer of themes for TV shows such as Desperate Housewives, lyric by David Yazbek Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty and a book by bestselling author and journalist Kurt Andersen Heyday.

Harry Houdini 1874-1926, one of the world's most famous and stupefying escape artists, was known for his death-defying stunts and ability to outwit any restraint or obstacle, from handcuffs to jail cells to underwater traps and underground caves. The story of the magician's inability to satisfy his obsessive quest to challenge the limitations of being human, Houdini deals with the human yearning for astonishment and miracles and the quest to defy death.

The full design team, Broadway theater and casting for Houdini will be announced at a later date. No word if the musical will have a pre-Broadway run at the Old Globe in San Diego, where O'Brien served as artistic director from 1981 to 2007. The director, who regularly juggles musicals and plays, won the 2007 Tony Award for Tom Stoppard's Coast of Utopia trilogy.