Amas Brings Lone Star Love Off-B'way in Winter

Lone Star Love, a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor that has long been rumored for a Broadway mounting, is coming off-Broadway this fall. Amas Musical Theatre will present a production of the tuner, starring WKRP in Cincinnati's Gary Sandy, beginning on November 21, according to a production spokesperson.

Lone Star Love relocates Shakespeare's comedy to Texas. In the musical, Falstaff is still up to his shenanigans, but this time they happen on the Texas prairie. Jack Herrick of the string band The Red Clay Ramblers wrote the score for the show. Michael Bogdanov, Bland Simpson and Tommy Thompson also contributed to the music.

The tuner has been in the works for years. It was first produced, under the title The Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas, at Houston's Alley Theater in 1988. The show had two more successful regional productions in St. Louis and Cincinnati where it won the Cincinnati Inquirer award for Best Musical in 1994. Bogdanov signed on as director in 1996 and two workshops followed. A revised version, under the name Lone Star Love, was unveiled at the Great Lakes Theater Festival in the fall of 2001.

Lone Star Love, directed by Bogdanov, is scheduled to officially open in New York on December 8.