David Bowie is coming to Off-Broadway next year. We repeat, DAVID BOWIE IS WRITING A GOD DAMN MUSICAL. If ever there was a song made for this moment, it is "Life On Mars."
According to a press release from Off Broadway’s esteemed New York Theater Workshop, Bowie is co-writing Lazarus with Tony Award-winning playwright Enda Walsh (whose impressive body of work includes Once and the phenomenal play The Walworth Farce). It will be brought to life by acclaimed Flemmish director Ivo van Hove (who knows a thing or two about adapting other art forms for the stage).
The musical is an adaptation of Walter Tevis’s 1963 novel The Man Who Feel To Earth, which was previously adapted into a classic Nicolas Roeg movie starring Bowie as a glum, orange-tinged alcoholic alien in 1976. Check out the trailer for the film below.
The play will include songs specially composed by Bowie for this production, as well as new arrangements of previously recorded songs. Which means there is a decent chance songs like "The Man Who Sold The World," "Station To Station," and "Sound & Vision" could be included. Or maybe "Breaking Glass!" Maybe he'll draw something awful on the carpet!
James C. Nicola, the artistic director of New York Theater Workshop, told the Times the play has been in secret development for some years; he added that Bowie brought the idea to van Hove, who in turn brought Walsh on board. "It’s going to be a play with characters and songs — I’m calling it music theater, but I don’t really know what it’s going to be like, I just have incredible trust in their creative vision," Nicola said. "I’m really excited about it. These are three very different sensibilities to be colliding."
If this news has got you as jazzed as us, keep the Bowie high going by checking out our ranking of every Bowie studio album.
