La La Land stage musical ‘in the middle of workshops’

Exclusive: Award-winning director Bartlett Sher is currently in the UK overseeing the eagerly anticipated and huge new revival of Kiss Me, Kate – but he also had time to give a few juicy tidbits on another musical endeavour – the stage version of La La Land. 

The winner of six Academy Awards including Best Original Score and Best Original Song, the much-loved film starred Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a jazz musician and an actress struggling to make ends meet in Hollywood. Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, the film has a score by Justin Hurwitz with lyrics by Dear Evan Hansen writing duo Pasek and Paul. Numbers include “Someone In The Crowd”, “City of Stars” and “Another Day of Sun”.

The stage production was first revealed last February, with Sher (To Kill a Mockingbird, The King and I) on directing duties. The book was set to come courtesy of Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar and Matthew Decker. Since then, the situation has been a bit quieter.

Until now – Sher gave us a small an insight into the current state of proceedings, confirming the show is very much still in development: “I am still working on La La Land. We are working with producer Marc Platt, who is also the producer of Wicked, so it’s the same group.”

He continued: “We’re in the middle of workshops and trying to find a theatrical language for this amazing film. So we’re in the middle of that right now, and when I’m done with this [Kiss Me, Kate], I go back to New York for some more workshops.”

Performance dates are unknown – and we’d be fascinated to see who is in those workshops… Hopefully London will follow New York!

Watch Sher discuss the project below: