The Notebook is coming back into our lives and we are ecstatic! The 2004 film based on the bestselling Nicholas Sparks novel is making a comeback with an upcoming musical by singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. 

The news was announced on Thursday’s Today Show by Michaelson who confirmed she has tapped for the Broadway production. The story will be adapted for the stage by This Is Us producer Bekah Brunstetter. 

“I’m writing a musical… and the musical is The Notebook!” Michaelson screamed to co-host Hoda Kotb on the daytime talk show. “I haven’t been able to say it in so long! And now I’m saying it! The Notebook! The Notebook! The Notebook!”

“When I was approached about working on The Notebook I had to excuse myself and go to the bathroom and cry and come back into the meeting,” said Michaelson added later in a statement. “I have loved the movie and the story for so many years now that the idea of turning it into a musical overwhelmed me. The concept of unending devotion and love wrapped up in memory and family is something very close to my own personal life…I cannot wait for the world to hear these characters come to life in a musical way.”

“The story hits home for me in two big ways: it takes place in my home state of North Carolina, and Alzheimer’s runs deep in my family. I was sent a few songs Ingrid had already written for it, and that week, I spent my drives to and from work car-listening, memorizing, imagining the story unfold with music, imagining how I might layer worlds, dramatize memory, and before I even knew that I had to write the book for this, it was already starting to happen in my head.”  

Check out the announcement below!

The post “The Notebook” is Becoming a Musical appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

The musical, inspired by the life and music of Jackson, will open on Broadway in 2020, eleven years after his passing. The news was confirmed by the pop star’s estate on Tuesday. The still-untitled stage production is being developed by The Michael Jackson Estate and Columbia Live Stage. 

While details are scarce, it is known that two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage will write the story. Tony-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon will direct and choreograph.

The Michael Jackson Estate has collaborated in the past on various productions that attempted to dramatize the pop icon’s life. In 2013, it worked with Cirque du Soleil to launch Michael Jackson One, which has been running in Las Vegas since 2013. 

The King of Pop died at the age of 50 in 2009 ending decades of a musical career that included numerous hits and 13 Grammys. 

The post Michael Jackson Musical Coming to Broadway in 2020 appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Anna and Elsa will make their way across the country beginning with an official opening at the Pantages in Los Angeles. Not a lot is known about the tour as the itinerary has yet to be set and casting has yet to be announced. What is known is that the production will keep its musical direction of two-time Tony winner Stephen Oremus and conductor Dave Metzger during the tour. 

The production opened on Broadway in March and received three Tony nominations for best score, book and musical. Music for the musical was composed by the Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez duo, the book is by Jennifer Lee while Michael Grandage serves as director. 

“The only reason to expand this piece into a full-length Broadway musical was to dive much deeper into the idea of a family that can get frozen into dysfunction because of fear and shame,” Anderson-Lopez said of Frozen on-stage adaptation to The Hollywood Reporter. “To come to the theater and sit and have this analog experience with other people, allowing your emotions to really get as big as the emotions onstage, is something that we kind of need, and it can be really healing.”

The post Frozen Musical to Launch North American Tour appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Castings for the world premiere of Moulin Rouge! The Musical has been announced. Set to helm the new musical adaptation of Moulin Rouge are Arron Tveit and Karen Olivo. 

The stage adaptation of the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film will be led by Tony-winner Olivo set to play the Nicole Kidman part and Teveit who will play the role Ewan McGregor played in the movie. Six-time Tony nominee Danny Bursting has been cast to portray the Moulin Rouge’s host. Additional castings include Tam Mutu as the Duke of Monroth, Sahr Ngaujah as Toulouse-Lautrec, Ricky Rojas as tango dancer Santiago, and Robyn Hurder as the tempting Nini. 

The Broadway-bound production will hold its world premiere in Boston and is directed by Alex Timbers. The screenplay will be penned by Luhrmann himself alongside Craig Pearce. Serving as choreographer is Sonya Tayeh. 

The premiere will take place at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre in a limited engagement of 36 performances from June 27 through August 5.

Details about the musical’s Broadway run have yet to be announced.

The post “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” Announces Cast For Pre-Broadway Premiere appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Finally set for an official launch, the announcement came Wednesday, that the musical comedy based on Tim Burton’s 1988 film of the same name, will make its debut in DC.

The musical adaptation is said to be a “ruder, raunchier, and frankly, more repellant” version of Burton’s film.

Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatcher) will direct the production that will be choreographed by Connor Gallagher (The Robber Bridegroom), with an original score by Eddie Perfect (King Kong) and a book by Scott Brown and Emmy nominee Anthony King (Broad City).

Beetlejuice tells the story of death-obsessed teenager Lydia, who has just moved into a house haunted by a recently deceased couple and one obnoxious ghost.

After Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which didn’t do so well on Broadway, Beetlejuice marks the latest, high-profile Broadway bet for Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures.

The post Beetlejuice musical set to premiere on Broadway in October appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

The most recent film to be adapted for the stage is 1988 classic Beaches. The film starred Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey and was based on Iris Rainer Dart’s novel of the same name.

74-year-old Dart spoke with ET about the musical adaptation of the film, three decades after it hit the small screen. Dart told ET “I feel very lucky, first of all, to be my age and doing this. The theater has much less ageism than the movie and television business.” Dart also added that Beaches is expected to first hit the West End in London in 2019 before coming to Broadway, “One of the things I’ve learned” she said after her People in the Picture straight went straight to Broadway, “is to never open a show on Broadway before you’ve been out of town.”

Currently, the project is in the workshop stage, with the creative team rewriting the script and working on some new song additions. “We’re just listening, refining, redoing and seeing which songs work and which ones don’t,” Dart explains. There are no confirmed castings as of yet, however, production execs are hoping to incorporate talent from previous productions of the musical.

Looks like reimagining movie classics for the stage is becoming a trend as the Beaches adaptation follows a very successful run of Groundhog Day as well as the upcoming Pretty Woman: The Musical. 

The post “Beaches” Musical will make its London debut before coming to Broadway appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Little is known about Steven Spielberg’s remake of the street gang musical West Side Story. Most recent news regarding the almost completely under wraps project is that penning the script is screenwriter Tony Kushner (Lincoln, Munich) and now a casting call has gone out.

A casting notice is seeking performers that’ll be cast as the onscreen musical’s main characters, 3 Latino performers for the roles of Maria, Anita, and Bernardo and a Caucasian actor for the role of Tony.

Spielberg has never tempted making a musical but has talked about doing it since the mid-‘80s. It will be interesting to see how the iconic filmmaker’s adaptation the 1957 Broadway musical from stage to the screen. With the music written by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim there’s no surprise the casting call notice reads, “must be able to sing.”

The casting call was first reported by Broadway World. 

Casting Call: yes it’s real. Yes, do it!! #WestSideStory pic.twitter.com/Sj6klhTD2A

— Marci Liroff (@marciliroff) January 26, 2018

The post Steven Spielberg puts out casting call for “West Side Story” remake appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

The 2004 film marked Tina Fey’s screenwriting debut and immediately became a cult classic. Now, Mean Girls has found second life as a musical, premiering in Washington D.C. this October 31 for a try-out run before coming to Broadway.

Fey began working on the musical adaptation 5 years ago with composer husband, Jeff Richmond. It was actually Richmond who suggested that Mean Girls could really work as a musical. Fey put her trust in him and began adapting her script for the stage.

Taking Lindsay Lohan’s role Cady Heron as the naïve homeschooler turned plastic is Erika Henningsen. Barrett Wilbert Weed and Grey Henson will play Cady’s friendly guides, Janis and Damian. The Mean Girls themselves are a trio of Broadway veterans: Taylor Louderman playing Regina George, Kate Rockwell as Karen Smith, and Ashley Park as Gretchen Wieners.

Fey spoke of the musical’s casting saying “[i]t’s similar to the experience I had with the movie, where you watch someone like Rachel McAdams and you think, ‘Oh, she made this. She’s such a great talent that she’s actually making this more than is on the page’. When you have great actors, like we do now with these young women, they bring more to it than you even imagined.”

In the writing process, Fey revisited the source material she used for the movie: Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees & Wannabes, a self-help book for worried parents and their teenage daughters.

“I tried to remember to stay at the core humanity of it, which is the behavior that comes out of all of us sometimes out of jealousy or fear,” Fey explained. “The great thing about music is it lets you get in people’s heads and inside their emotional lives in a way that you can do with a tight close-up in movies… I think fans will hopefully find that this has the DNA of the movie and is true to the spirit of it, but is also opened up in a lot of ways.”

The post Tina Fey Gives Fans a First Look at “Mean Girls: the Musical appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

According to a press release, the show will be set in Paris and will be centered on “a club, its owner, the house band, and the chaotic city that surrounds them.”

The show will also feature an original musical score composed by six-time grammy winner Glen Ballard, who worked on Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad.

In a statement, Chazelle said, “I’ve always dreamed of shooting in Paris, so I’m doubly excited to be teaming up with Jack Thorne, Glen and Alan Poul [executive producer] on this story, and thrilled that we have found a home for it at Netflix.”

The post Netflix announced an new musical drama by “La La Land” director Damien Chazelle appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Bill Murray‘s crying while watching Groundhog Day in a Broadway theater is the sweetest thing we saw this week. The musical, based on the same-name 1993’s movie starring Murray, premiered in London last summer.

Sopan Deb from New York Times reported on Twitter: “By the time the cast was bowing on stage, Mr. Murray was in tears. He waited a minute to compose himself before joining the rest of the audience to cheer the cast.”

Murray explained what moved him to tears: “The idea that we just have to try again. We just have to try again. It’s such a beautiful, powerful idea.”

This was Bill Murray's speech to the Groundhog's Day cast. Stay tuned for the part about the Panama Canal. pic.twitter.com/YK0nhkxiAa

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 9, 2017

An edited excerpt from my conversation with Bill Murray after he watched the musical version of Groundhog Day for the first time: pic.twitter.com/FpOUDh2BFm

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 9, 2017

The post Bill Murray Moved To Tears Watching “Groundhog Day” On Broadway appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

The Notebook is coming back into our lives and we are ecstatic! The 2004 film based on the bestselling Nicholas Sparks novel is making a comeback with an upcoming musical by singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. 

The news was announced on Thursday’s Today Show by Michaelson who confirmed she has tapped for the Broadway production. The story will be adapted for the stage by This Is Us producer Bekah Brunstetter. 

“I’m writing a musical… and the musical is The Notebook!” Michaelson screamed to co-host Hoda Kotb on the daytime talk show. “I haven’t been able to say it in so long! And now I’m saying it! The Notebook! The Notebook! The Notebook!”

“When I was approached about working on The Notebook I had to excuse myself and go to the bathroom and cry and come back into the meeting,” said Michaelson added later in a statement. “I have loved the movie and the story for so many years now that the idea of turning it into a musical overwhelmed me. The concept of unending devotion and love wrapped up in memory and family is something very close to my own personal life…I cannot wait for the world to hear these characters come to life in a musical way.”

“The story hits home for me in two big ways: it takes place in my home state of North Carolina, and Alzheimer’s runs deep in my family. I was sent a few songs Ingrid had already written for it, and that week, I spent my drives to and from work car-listening, memorizing, imagining the story unfold with music, imagining how I might layer worlds, dramatize memory, and before I even knew that I had to write the book for this, it was already starting to happen in my head.”  

Check out the announcement below!

The post “The Notebook” is Becoming a Musical appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

The musical, inspired by the life and music of Jackson, will open on Broadway in 2020, eleven years after his passing. The news was confirmed by the pop star’s estate on Tuesday. The still-untitled stage production is being developed by The Michael Jackson Estate and Columbia Live Stage. 

While details are scarce, it is known that two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage will write the story. Tony-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon will direct and choreograph.

The Michael Jackson Estate has collaborated in the past on various productions that attempted to dramatize the pop icon’s life. In 2013, it worked with Cirque du Soleil to launch Michael Jackson One, which has been running in Las Vegas since 2013. 

The King of Pop died at the age of 50 in 2009 ending decades of a musical career that included numerous hits and 13 Grammys. 

The post Michael Jackson Musical Coming to Broadway in 2020 appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Anna and Elsa will make their way across the country beginning with an official opening at the Pantages in Los Angeles. Not a lot is known about the tour as the itinerary has yet to be set and casting has yet to be announced. What is known is that the production will keep its musical direction of two-time Tony winner Stephen Oremus and conductor Dave Metzger during the tour. 

The production opened on Broadway in March and received three Tony nominations for best score, book and musical. Music for the musical was composed by the Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez duo, the book is by Jennifer Lee while Michael Grandage serves as director. 

“The only reason to expand this piece into a full-length Broadway musical was to dive much deeper into the idea of a family that can get frozen into dysfunction because of fear and shame,” Anderson-Lopez said of Frozen on-stage adaptation to The Hollywood Reporter. “To come to the theater and sit and have this analog experience with other people, allowing your emotions to really get as big as the emotions onstage, is something that we kind of need, and it can be really healing.”

The post Frozen Musical to Launch North American Tour appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Castings for the world premiere of Moulin Rouge! The Musical has been announced. Set to helm the new musical adaptation of Moulin Rouge are Arron Tveit and Karen Olivo. 

The stage adaptation of the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film will be led by Tony-winner Olivo set to play the Nicole Kidman part and Teveit who will play the role Ewan McGregor played in the movie. Six-time Tony nominee Danny Bursting has been cast to portray the Moulin Rouge’s host. Additional castings include Tam Mutu as the Duke of Monroth, Sahr Ngaujah as Toulouse-Lautrec, Ricky Rojas as tango dancer Santiago, and Robyn Hurder as the tempting Nini. 

The Broadway-bound production will hold its world premiere in Boston and is directed by Alex Timbers. The screenplay will be penned by Luhrmann himself alongside Craig Pearce. Serving as choreographer is Sonya Tayeh. 

The premiere will take place at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre in a limited engagement of 36 performances from June 27 through August 5.

Details about the musical’s Broadway run have yet to be announced.

The post “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” Announces Cast For Pre-Broadway Premiere appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Finally set for an official launch, the announcement came Wednesday, that the musical comedy based on Tim Burton’s 1988 film of the same name, will make its debut in DC.

The musical adaptation is said to be a “ruder, raunchier, and frankly, more repellant” version of Burton’s film.

Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatcher) will direct the production that will be choreographed by Connor Gallagher (The Robber Bridegroom), with an original score by Eddie Perfect (King Kong) and a book by Scott Brown and Emmy nominee Anthony King (Broad City).

Beetlejuice tells the story of death-obsessed teenager Lydia, who has just moved into a house haunted by a recently deceased couple and one obnoxious ghost.

After Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which didn’t do so well on Broadway, Beetlejuice marks the latest, high-profile Broadway bet for Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures.

The post Beetlejuice musical set to premiere on Broadway in October appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

The most recent film to be adapted for the stage is 1988 classic Beaches. The film starred Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey and was based on Iris Rainer Dart’s novel of the same name.

74-year-old Dart spoke with ET about the musical adaptation of the film, three decades after it hit the small screen. Dart told ET “I feel very lucky, first of all, to be my age and doing this. The theater has much less ageism than the movie and television business.” Dart also added that Beaches is expected to first hit the West End in London in 2019 before coming to Broadway, “One of the things I’ve learned” she said after her People in the Picture straight went straight to Broadway, “is to never open a show on Broadway before you’ve been out of town.”

Currently, the project is in the workshop stage, with the creative team rewriting the script and working on some new song additions. “We’re just listening, refining, redoing and seeing which songs work and which ones don’t,” Dart explains. There are no confirmed castings as of yet, however, production execs are hoping to incorporate talent from previous productions of the musical.

Looks like reimagining movie classics for the stage is becoming a trend as the Beaches adaptation follows a very successful run of Groundhog Day as well as the upcoming Pretty Woman: The Musical. 

The post “Beaches” Musical will make its London debut before coming to Broadway appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Little is known about Steven Spielberg’s remake of the street gang musical West Side Story. Most recent news regarding the almost completely under wraps project is that penning the script is screenwriter Tony Kushner (Lincoln, Munich) and now a casting call has gone out.

A casting notice is seeking performers that’ll be cast as the onscreen musical’s main characters, 3 Latino performers for the roles of Maria, Anita, and Bernardo and a Caucasian actor for the role of Tony.

Spielberg has never tempted making a musical but has talked about doing it since the mid-‘80s. It will be interesting to see how the iconic filmmaker’s adaptation the 1957 Broadway musical from stage to the screen. With the music written by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim there’s no surprise the casting call notice reads, “must be able to sing.”

The casting call was first reported by Broadway World. 

Casting Call: yes it’s real. Yes, do it!! #WestSideStory pic.twitter.com/Sj6klhTD2A

— Marci Liroff (@marciliroff) January 26, 2018

The post Steven Spielberg puts out casting call for “West Side Story” remake appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

The 2004 film marked Tina Fey’s screenwriting debut and immediately became a cult classic. Now, Mean Girls has found second life as a musical, premiering in Washington D.C. this October 31 for a try-out run before coming to Broadway.

Fey began working on the musical adaptation 5 years ago with composer husband, Jeff Richmond. It was actually Richmond who suggested that Mean Girls could really work as a musical. Fey put her trust in him and began adapting her script for the stage.

Taking Lindsay Lohan’s role Cady Heron as the naïve homeschooler turned plastic is Erika Henningsen. Barrett Wilbert Weed and Grey Henson will play Cady’s friendly guides, Janis and Damian. The Mean Girls themselves are a trio of Broadway veterans: Taylor Louderman playing Regina George, Kate Rockwell as Karen Smith, and Ashley Park as Gretchen Wieners.

Fey spoke of the musical’s casting saying “[i]t’s similar to the experience I had with the movie, where you watch someone like Rachel McAdams and you think, ‘Oh, she made this. She’s such a great talent that she’s actually making this more than is on the page’. When you have great actors, like we do now with these young women, they bring more to it than you even imagined.”

In the writing process, Fey revisited the source material she used for the movie: Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees & Wannabes, a self-help book for worried parents and their teenage daughters.

“I tried to remember to stay at the core humanity of it, which is the behavior that comes out of all of us sometimes out of jealousy or fear,” Fey explained. “The great thing about music is it lets you get in people’s heads and inside their emotional lives in a way that you can do with a tight close-up in movies… I think fans will hopefully find that this has the DNA of the movie and is true to the spirit of it, but is also opened up in a lot of ways.”

The post Tina Fey Gives Fans a First Look at “Mean Girls: the Musical appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

According to a press release, the show will be set in Paris and will be centered on “a club, its owner, the house band, and the chaotic city that surrounds them.”

The show will also feature an original musical score composed by six-time grammy winner Glen Ballard, who worked on Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad.

In a statement, Chazelle said, “I’ve always dreamed of shooting in Paris, so I’m doubly excited to be teaming up with Jack Thorne, Glen and Alan Poul [executive producer] on this story, and thrilled that we have found a home for it at Netflix.”

The post Netflix announced an new musical drama by “La La Land” director Damien Chazelle appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.

Bill Murray‘s crying while watching Groundhog Day in a Broadway theater is the sweetest thing we saw this week. The musical, based on the same-name 1993’s movie starring Murray, premiered in London last summer.

Sopan Deb from New York Times reported on Twitter: “By the time the cast was bowing on stage, Mr. Murray was in tears. He waited a minute to compose himself before joining the rest of the audience to cheer the cast.”

Murray explained what moved him to tears: “The idea that we just have to try again. We just have to try again. It’s such a beautiful, powerful idea.”

This was Bill Murray's speech to the Groundhog's Day cast. Stay tuned for the part about the Panama Canal. pic.twitter.com/YK0nhkxiAa

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 9, 2017

An edited excerpt from my conversation with Bill Murray after he watched the musical version of Groundhog Day for the first time: pic.twitter.com/FpOUDh2BFm

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 9, 2017

The post Bill Murray Moved To Tears Watching “Groundhog Day” On Broadway appeared first on OMG Check It Out !.