Let It Be! Julie Taymor Is Ready to Bring Her Beatles Movie Musical Across the Universe to Broadway

Come together, Across the Universe fans, for some major news! Tony Award-winning stage and film director Julie Taymor is ready to bring her 2007 Beatles movie musical to the stage. “I’ve wanted it for so many years,” she tells Paul Wontorek on the upcoming episode of the Broadway.com talker Show People. “Hopefully in the next two years, we finally get to see Across the Universe onstage.”

A labor of love for the acclaimed director of The Lion King and the current revival of M. Butterfly, Across the Universe uses the songs of the Beatles to tell the 1960s story of a young British worker named, yes, Jude who sets sail for the United States in search of his father and winds up meeting carefree college student Joe and his sister Lucy, as well as a cast of eccentrics. As love blossoms between Jude and Lucy, everything in their world changes with the arrival of the Vietnam War. Although not a box office smash, the film was nominated for a 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical and received an Academy Award nomination for costume design and has become a favorite for musical theater fans.

“If we went straight to Broadway, it could’ve happened 10 years ago, but we want to create it in a different kind of theater,” Taymor shares, adding that the show could premiere in Europe or even the Far East before hopefully landing in New York City. Luckily, “people all over the world know the Beatles,” she adds.

Of course, bringing the epic scope of the film to the stage will be a challenge. “Very few movie musicals are created as a movie musical first,” Taymor says. “There were 200 scenes in that film. It was very visual. And 5,000 extras. What’s hard is trying to compress it into less scenes without losing the power of Across the Universe.” Taymor hopes to create the show with a six principals, an ensemble of 20-25 dancer/singers and “maybe two or three adults who can do all the adult roles.”

“I’m going to change out a few songs,” she adds. “And [there will be] a lot of choreography, but that’s good because we threw out a lot of choreography for the movie because we wanted it to be real.” Taymor says the stage adaptation will once again be a collaboration with the film choreographer Daniel Ezralow, who also choreographed Taymor’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on Broadway.

Taymor hopes the story of Across the Universe can inspire today’s youth with its story of 60s activism. “It’s has the love story, but it’s also extremely political about how young people must take responsibility,” Taymor says. “Get off their chairs and their couches and out of their iPads and iPhones and take charge. If you don’t like what’s happening to the world, you better change it. It doesn’t matter that it’s set in the Vietnam War. It’s about young people for all time, across the universe and these songs transcend times.”

As for Taymor’s own passion for the project? “How could you fall out of love with the Beatles?”

Across the Universe starred Jim Sturgess as Jude, Evan Rachel Wood as Lucy Carrigan, Joe Anderson as Max Carrigan, Dana Fuchs as Sadie, Martin Luther McCoy as Jo-Jo, T.V. Carpio as Prudence and many Broadway performers in featured roles and cameos, including Dylan Baker, Matt Caplan, Luther Creek, Aisha De Haas, Linda Emond, Mandy Gonzalez, Deidre Goodwin, Cody Green, Leah Hocking, Curtis Holbrook, Bill Irwin, Spencer Liff, Orfeh, Nathan Peck, Desmond Richardson, Luis Salgado, Saycon Sengbloh, Daniel Stewart Sherman and Carol Woods.

See Taymor talk about Across the Universe in the clip below and look for the full episode of Show People with Paul Wontorek on Broadway on November 22.