Coram Boy: The Movie

Alan Parker will direct and write "Coram Boy," the feature version of Jamila Gavin's novel with Scott Rudin and Allison Owen producing.
Adaptation has been set as a co-production of Scott Rudin Prods., Owen's Ruby Films and BBC Films, in partnership with Miramax and the U.K. Film Council.

Novel, winner of the Whitbread Children's Book Award, is an epic adventure about two orphans -- one rescued from an African slave ship, the other the abandoned son of the heir to a great estate. The duo are raised in Britain's Coram hospice in 1741.

Novel was separately turned into a play by Helen Edmundson that was a hit at London's National Theater and has just opened on Broadway.

Actually, it just closed on Broadway... and not "just." It couldn't even hold on til the Tonys (where it was nominated for, but did not win, best play). I blame the marketing (people just didn't know what they'd be getting if they went in there, so they didn't go in), because word of mouth was uniformly fantastic. Well, maybe not uniformly--My buddy Chris didn't care for it, but eveyrone else I know who saw it, including myself, was pretty much blown away.

Coram Boy (the play) was meaty, scary, funny, touching, disturbing -- a true Dickensian yarn on stage (and it was apparently the most expensive non-musical ever produced on Broadway, which is evident from the brilliant staging). It will make a great movie... if they do it right.

Young Frankenstein: The Musical

The full cast of Young Frankenstein: The Musical, has been announced! Read this while I scoop my jaw up off the floor...

The production stars Roger Bart (Dr. Frederick Frankenstein), Megan Mullally (Elizabeth), Sutton Foster (Inga), Shuler Hensley (The Monster), Andrea Martin (Frau Blucher), Fred Applegate (Kemp) and Christopher Fitzgerald (Igor).

Oh, yeah. Megan Mullally in the Madeline Kahn role? (Perfect.) Sutton Foster in the Teri Garr role? (Practically drooling--Imagine her doing "Roll, roll, roll in ze hay...") Andrea fucking Martin as Frau Blucher?! (Niiiiigh).

Yes, it's sad that Brooks apparently renegged on a promise to let octogenarian legend Cloris Leachman reprise Blucher (Niiiiigh)... but I'm not gonna let myself feel bad about that right now, cause that cast right there? That's theater queen heaven. (Squee!)

...The show's raucous score includes 'The Transylvania Mania,' 'He Vas My Boyfriend' and the unforgettable treatment of Irving Berlin's 'Puttin' On the Ritz.

Previews begin October 11 at the Hilton Theatre on 42nd.

Sorkin's Farnsworth Invention to Broadway

Playbill.com is reporting that Aaron Sorkin's new play, The Farnsworth Invention, will--as expected--transfer to Broadway in October. The play had a successful workshop production at the La Jolla Playhouse last February.

The Farnsworth Invention concerns the battle for the patent for the invention of the television set. The race pitted a young genius, Philo T. Farnsworth, who came up with the idea as a high school student, against David Sarnoff, the head of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

Sorkin wrote Farnsworth as a play after he and his TV partner Tommy Schlamme were unable to get the project off the ground as a feature film. Steven Spielberg will co-produce the Broadway produciton (after a *rumored* investment of $20 million). Spielberg's involvement suggests Farnsworth may end up taking the "Few Good Men" route to the silver screen.

Which is fine--Just keep Demi Moore (not to mention, Amanda Peet) away from it!

Meanwhile, Sorkin wrote the screenplay for (my beloved) Mike Nichols' latest film, Charlie Wilson's War. Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Julia Roberts star. It bows on Christmas Day. Sorkin will almost certainly receive an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay.

So, for those lamenting the loss of Studio 60--which, naturally, has been really clicking in the final pod of episodes (currently being burned off by NBC on Thursday nights at 10)--Don't. At least not on his behalf. Sorkin's doing just fine.

Previously... Studio 60 Has Been Cancelled

U2 & Julie Taymor Team-Up for Spider-Man: The Musical???

Please, dear lord in heaven, by all that is holy -- Say it ain't so!

The character breakdowns provide some insight to plot points as the character Arachne ("female, 20-35 years old, any ethnicity") is described as "a beautiful, boastful young woman turned into a spider for her hubris and lack of respect for the gods. She subsequently appears to Peter Parker and the audience as in turn a powerful spider-woman who comes from another time to inspire Peter; an otherworldly lover; a bride; a terrifying (and sexy) dark goddess of vengeance; a dance partner in a charged and violent spiders dance of death; and, finally, a lonely, fragile young woman." Casting is seeking a "strong Celtic, Balkan style, e.g., Sinead O'Connor," noting, "outside the box ideas are welcomed. Could be someone from the music industry."