The Witches of Eastwick to Have U.S. Premiere at Virginia's Signature

The musical version of The Witches of Eastwick, which premiered in London in 2000, is finally coming to the United States. The show will have its American premiere at Virginia's Signature Theatre, running June 5, 2007, through July 15, 2007.

Based on the John Updike novel and the subsequent Warner Bros. film of the same name, The Witches of Eastwick features book and lyrics by John Dempsey and music by Dana P. Rowe. Set in the tiny New England town of Eastwick, Rhode Island, the plot centers on three unhappy women who innocently plot and conjure for their perfect man over a heady brew of brownies and weak martinis. When their longings are made flesh in the arrival of one Darryl Van Horne, all hell breaks loose.

The Witches of Eastwick premiered at Theatre Royal-Drury Lane on July 18, 2000, with a cast that featured Ian McShane, Lucie Arnaz, Maria Friedman and Joanna Riding. The technically complicated show then moved from the 2,200-seat Drury Lane to the 1,100-seat Prince of Wales. A revamped version of the tuner began performances at the Prince of Wales with a new cast featuring Clarke Peters, Josefina Gabrielle, original cast member Riding and Rebecca Thornhill on March 23, 2001. The reincarnation of the musical received better reviews that the first one, but did not attract a huge audience and shuttered on October 27, 2001. The show has since been produced in Russia, Japan and Australia. Signature Theatre Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, who helmed the musical in London, will reprise his duties for this new mounting. The show will be housed in the company's new $12.5 million two-theatre complex in the Village at Shirlington.

"The Witches of Eastwick—despite its various English, Russian, Japanese and Australian productions—is an American musical," Dempsey and Rowe said in a statement. "How wonderful it is then to be bringing it to American soil at long last. In deciding upon a national premiere, we could think of no greater launching pad than the Signature Theatre, having had such a wickedly good time there doing The Fix [which they wrote and Schaeffer directed] a few seasons back. We hope the Signature audiences enjoy dancing with the devil as much as we enjoyed dreaming up the dance."