17-Year-Old Noah Altshuler Will Pen Tom Sawyer Stage Adaptation with Eyes Set for Broadway

Tom Sawyer could be heading to Broadway, but not in a Big River revival. Noah Altshuler, a 17-year-old high school senior from Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been tapped to pen a stage adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The work will be commissioned by Hartford, Connecticut’s Mark Twain House & Museum, where Altshuler serves as Playwright-in-Residence. Though the new play reportedly has its eyes set on the Great White Way, no official plans for a Broadway bow have been announced.

The play will primarily lift elements from the popular 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but it will also draw inspiration from Twain’s other works about the beloved southern boy along the Mississippi, including Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective.

Altshuler’s work primarily focuses on gender roles in adolescence. In 2014, he was the youngest playwright featured in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with his play Making the Move. His upcoming sequel to the piece, Last Call for Providence, will premiere there later this year.