Ivo van Hove and Rufus Wainwright to Stage a Musical of Cassevetes' Opening Night

The Tony Award-winning Belgian theatermaker Ivo van Hove and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright are creating a musical version of the John Cassavetes film Opening Night.

Their adaptation will open on March 6, 2024 at the Gielgud Theatre in London, with a closing date set for July 27. English actress and singer Sheridan Smith will star in the role of Myrtle Gordon, performed by Gena Rowlands in the film. Smith’s West End credits include Into the Woods, Little Shop of Horrors, Legally Blonde, Hedda Gabler, Funny Girl and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

In Opening Night, Myrtle is an aging, alcoholic stage actress. Her nervous breakdown—brought on by witnessing the death of a fan—culminates spectacularly on stage, in front of an eager audience.

Cassevetes’ preoccupations as a filmmaker perfectly align with Van Hove’s as a theatermaker: harrowing emotion, madness, self-destruction and blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction. Van Hove, who will write as well as direct, staged a non-musical theatrical version of the film for the Toneelgroep Amsterdam in 2006; it was staged in Brooklyn as part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival in 2008. At the time, Van Hove said he’d never seen the movie.

Opening Night will not be the only musical Van Hove directs in 2024; he is currently in rehearsals for his take on Jesus Christ Superstar in Amsterdam. A Tony Award winner for his 2015 staging of A View from the Bridge, Van Hove's additional Broadway credits include The Crucible in 2016, Network in 2018 and West Side Story, which ended a brief run in 2020 when COVID-19 closed down Broadway.

Since his eponymous 1998 debut album, Rufus Wainwright has shown a predisposition for songs lush with drama and theatricality, influenced by Verdi and Wagner, as well as a lugubrious baritone. In 2009 he premiered his opera Prima Donna and composed music for the experimental theater director Robert Wilson’s staging of Shakespeare’s sonnets in Berlin.

“It is a dream come true to collaborate with the wonderful Rufus Wainwright, whose work I have been a fan of for so many years," Van Hove said in a statement. “We connected over our shared love of the incredible John Casavettes film Opening Night and it has long been an ambition of ours to bring a musical version to the stage. Opening Night not only gives us an insight into the trials and tribulations behind the scenes of the theater, but it is also the heartbreaking story of a woman fighting for hope and self-determination in a world that doesn’t want to listen.”

Wainwright said, “For me John Cassavetes’ movie Opening Night has long been a shining beacon representing both excellence in cinema and the might of live theater. An intense marriage of film and stage it is about a very personal mental and creative survival that I think we can all relate to on a very deep human level. I’ve been waiting for ages to write my first musical."

(Wainwright and Van Hove were interviewed together by T Magazine in 2018. “I think the first thing that I saw of his was Angels in America at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2014, which was incredible,” Wainwright said at the time. “We’ve wanted to do something together for years.”)

Smith said, “The chance to work with the musical genius that is Rufus Wainwright and one of the world’s greatest stage directors Ivo van Hove was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and quite frankly if they’d asked me to read out the back of a cereal packet I’d have been there!"

The production will feature sets, lighting and video design by Van Hove’s creative and life partner Jan Versweyveld, costumes by An D’Huys and sound by Tom Gibbons and Alex Twiselton. Nigel Lilley is the musical director and Polly Bennett is the choreographer. Further casting will be announced at a later date.