Are we ready for ‘Purple Rain’ the musical?
Forty years on from its debut, Prince’s film Purple Rain is set to be presented as a Broadway musical. Yes, start revving up those engines.
The stage interpretation will feature music from the iconic film soundtrack – all penned by Prince and including the hit singles ‘When Doves Cry’, ‘I Would Die 4 U’, ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, ‘Take Me With U’ and the title track.
Stage producer Orin Wolf announced that the 1984 film – about “an up-and-coming rock musician in the Minneapolis club scene, as he contends with a tumultuous home environment, a rival band and a budding romance” – will have its stage story penned by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, based on the original screenplay by William Blinn and Albert Magnoli.
‘Purple Rain’ earned $100 million worldwide and was added into the US National Film Registry in 2019 for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
The soundtrack sold over 25 million copies worldwide, earning Prince two Grammys and an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score.
Let’s see if that success, culture, history and aesthetic all work well on the musical stage, then.
Producers have hinted if the musical is successful on Broadway it will travel to other cities around the US and then possibly internationally.
Antonino Tati
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