Susan Stroman to Direct Kander & Ebb's The Scottsboro Boys at the Vineyard

Tony winner Susan Stroman will direct the world premiere production of The Scottsboro Boys, a new Kander & Ebb musical, at the Vineyard Theatre. The show, which will begin previews on February 12, 2010, and open on March 10, had previously been announced as a developmental Lab Production but will receive a full off-Broadway staging instead.

The Scottsboro Boys features music and lyrics by John Kander and the late Fred Ebb and a book by David Thompson. The show will have music direction by David Loud. The Tony-winning director of The Producers, Contact and Young Frankenstein previously worked with Kander and Ebb on the Vineyard’s 1987 revival of Flora, the Red Menace. The company's announcement did not list Stroman as choreographer for the upcoming production.

The Scottsboro Boys explores the infamous "Scottsboro" case of the 1930s, in which a group of African-American teenagers were unjustly accused of attacking two white women, and the boys' attempts to prove their innocence. The musical is described a stirring and provocative new work depicting one of the most memorable and notorious chapters in the history of race in America.

A 2006 New York Times article about Kander mentioned Stroman in connection with the Scottsboro musical (then called The Minstrel Show), one of several unproduced projects at that time of Ebb's death in 2004. Since then, Curtains has been produced on Broadway and The Visit was mounted at the Signature Theatre of Virginia.

Casting and additional creative team members for The Scottsboro Boys will be announced at a later date.