The Scottsboro Boys May Return For Limited Broadway Run in Spring 2011

Despite having announced a closing date of December 12 at the Lyceum Theatre, John Kander and Fred Ebb's The Scottsboro Boys may return for a limited Broadway run in spring 2011, according to The Wall Street Journal. Producer Barry Weissler says he hopes to bring the production back to Broadway before the 2011 Tony Awards. Weissler is also planning a national tour for the musical.

Directed by Susan Stroman and featuring a book by David Thompson, the musical is based on the notorious “Scottsboro” case in the 1930s, in which nine African-American men were unjustly accused of attacking two white women on a train in Alabama. The young men were convicted by an all-white jury and spent years in jail while the case was tried and retried. The musical uses the bygone minstrel show performance style to tell the boys' story and recently came under attack from protestors who did not approve of the minstrel format.

"We’ve never believed more strongly and passionately in a show as we did with The Scottsboro Boys,” Weissler said in a statment with producer Jacki Barlia Florin upon announcing the show's closing. "It’s a show we felt we had to produce and we’re proud and grateful to have brought this last great musical from Kander and Ebb to Broadway."

The tuner first played off-Broadway's Vineyard Theatre earlier this year before a revised pre-Broadway production was presented at the Guthrie Theatre in the summer. The show then opened on Broadway on October 31 and will have played 29 previews and 49 performances at the time of its closing.