The Greatest Showman’s Justin Paul gives update on stage adaptation

Justin Paul is having a fairly fantastic assortment of months.

Press hype is beginning to build for the live-action bow of his Snow White, led by Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot (which Paul and writing partner Benj Pasek scored new songs for), while the critically successful new tour of Dear Evan Hansen (also penned by Pasek and Paul) is visiting locations across the UK.

What’s more, he was also made EGOT earlier this year – scoring the much-needed Emmy win to take him to the complete set.

That’s not all: speaking at the opening night of Barcelona in the West End, Paul gave us an update on the forthcoming stage version of The Greatest Showman, which is being steered by the House of Mouse to a theatre sometime soon.

The musical film, starring Hugh Jackman, Zendaya, Zac Efron and Keala Settle, explores the life and fortunes of the circus entertainer PT Barnum. It first premiered at the end of 2017, and went on to be a box office smash, making $435 million worldwide. Numbers in the film include “The Greatest Show”, “A Million Dreams”, “Rewrite the Stars” and “From Now On”.

Officially confirmed earlier this autumn, dates and venues are far from being revealed, though that hasn’t stopped Paul from giving some exciting breadcrumbs: “We are working on the stage version of it. We’re in the early days workshopping, doing it in labs and, you know, figuring out what the stage adaptation of it is.

“There will be new songs and new material and all that stuff. But we’re early, early on in all of it: it’ll be on stage some day, hopefully sooner than later, and we’re really excited about it.”

Paul also likened the energy of the workshops to the early stages of the film production, where the material was being tested in rehearsal rooms in New York (you can watch it below): “I’m not revealing any kind of secret here because there are videos of this online that a lot of people have seen. Every time we did that material in the room, with people like Keala Settle, Hugh Jackman, Jeremy Jordan, it was always thrilling doing it – it felt very visceral in that sense.”

It’s notable that, for someone who cut their teeth in the theatre world, it’s almost a homecoming for Paul: “I am now acknowledging that I’m old enough that I’ve written something that is now going from a film back to stage. I am turning 40 in January – I can now acknowledge that.”

He concluded: “Who knows where it’s going to happen first or how it’s going to happen first. But we’re excited to sort of be back at work on it.”