Director/Choreographer Tommy Tune Developing New Musical About Studio 54

Nine-time Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Tommy Tune is at work on a new musical about the 1970s-era disco Studio 54—and he would love to see the show debut in the Broadway theater that now occupies the space. According to The Miami Herald, Tune recently spent two weeks working with playwright Mark Saltzman and theater students at the University of Miami on the untitled tuner, currently being referred to simply as “Project 54.”

Tune, who has a home in Miami, came to the university at the invitation of theater-arts department chairman Henry Fonte. Drawing on his personal memories of Studio 54, Tune and Saltzman tapped students to play disco co-owner Steve Rubell, Brooke Astor, Truman Capote, Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger and other famous folks of the 1970s. Tune's residency ended with four invitation-only performances of “Project 54,” which the Herald dubbed “a piece pulsing with disco music, dancing, humor and heartbreak.”

“We have many versions in script form, but this was our first time working with actors,” Tune said in an interview, adding that his dream is to stage the finished musical at Studio 54, a Broadway house owned by Roundabout Theatre Company. No timetable was specified.