GUEST POST - RUBY PRESTON (STAGED)

Everything's Coming Up Roses:

A Preview of Broadway's Bookish Shows This Spring

Guest Post by Ruby Preston

Each year as the weather starts to gets nicer and New York City begins to wake from its winter hibernation, it can only mean one thing – the Spring Broadway season is here! Ok, maybe the change in seasons doesn’t mean this for everyone, but at least for me, as both a theater lover and Broadway producer, I cannot wait for the spring to bring a flood of new musicals and plays to Broadway.

This Spring’s show line up has just as much promise as the flowers popping up amongst the New York City concrete, and good news for readers -- many of the shows coming to Broadway are based on famous novels. Here are just a few upcoming shows that might capture the imagination of readers by bringing the story from the page to the stage:


Matilda (opening April 11th at the Shubert Theatre)

I cannot wait for this musical to open up on Broadway! Transferring to New York from London’s West End (where I was lucky enough to see it!) Matilda is a musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book. About a magical girl whose love for books is a refuge from her unhappy family life, Matilda is guaranteed to enchant both the young and the young at heart!


Breakfast at Tiffany’s (opening March 20th at the Cort Theatre)

Audrey Hepburn made the movie an unforgettable classic, but people often forget that Breakfast at Tiffany’s was first a novella by Truman Capote. Isn’t it funny that a man who became famous for his true crime novels penned one of the most enduring romances of our time? I can’t wait to be swept up in Holly Golightly’s quirky New York romance!



The Testament of Mary (opening April 27th at the Walter Kerr Theatre)
 
Yes the play is the story of Mary during the crucifixion of Christ, but religion aside- this play promises to be an otherworldly delight for two reasons: first, it marks the Broadway world premiere of amazing Irish writer, Colm Tóibín's recent novella for the stage and second, it stars the brilliant Fiona Shaw, a four-time Olivier Award-winning actress who might be most famous for playing Harry Potter’s less than loving aunt Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films.


Big Fish (opening October 6th at the Neil Simon Theatre)
 
A musical all about story telling? Yes please! A new musical from composer Andrew Lippa based on the book by Daniel Wallace, I can’t wait to see the tall tales woven in the novel brought to life on the stage.




Ever After (opening date & theatre TBA)
 
Based on the 1998 Drew Barrymore film based on the Cinderella fairy tale, this new musical will be the second Broadway show about the maiden who lost her glass slipper to open on The Great White Way this season. Normally I like as much variety on Broadway as possible since there are so many different playwright’s voices out there waiting to be heard, but in this case, when it comes to one of my favorite fairy tales, if the slipper fits … then on with the show!


Author Bio: 

Author Ruby Preston is an award-winning Broadway producer who has helped to bring many musicals to the stage. Her first novel “SHOWBIZ,” described as “The Devil Wears Prada” meets NBC’s Smash, received widespread praise and was featured in various theater publications. Now a promising talent in the literary as well as the theater world, Preston’s newest release is the second book in her Broadway Trilogy.

Book Blurb:

Aspiring Broadway producer Scarlett Savoy has almost everything she needs to make her first musical a huge success- millions in financial backing, a talented (not to mention handsome) young director, and a big-name Hollywood starlet as her female lead. But with none of the theater owners in town willing to back a novice, she’s missing one final piece of the puzzle: a Broadway theater. Just when Scarlett thinks her show might never see the footlights of day, an unexpected meeting with the young, eligible son in the Stewart theatrical empire changes Scarlett’s Broadway prospects forever.

STAGED, the second novel by Broadway producer Ruby Preston, continues the saga of Scarlett Savoy and the colorful cast of theater characters introduced in SHOWBIZ.


Buy Staged:

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