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Imagine Lennon on Broadway
You may say he was a dreamer, but John Lennon's songs are coming to Broadway.
Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, has given the go-ahead on a new stage musical that will use such Lennon songs as "Imagine," "Give Peace a Chance," "Instant Karma" and "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" to tell the story of the '60s and '70s.
"Our project is the story of Lennon as lightning rod and how he defined the times and how the times defined him," Don Scardino, coproducer, director and cowriter of the musical, tells Variety. Eric Overmeyer is the project's other writer, and Edgar Lansbury will coproduce.
The as-yet untitled venture, referred to for now as The Lennon Project, will draw from a catalogue of about 200 Lennon songs from the post-Beatles years. The producers plan to showcase about 30 songs onstage.
Producers say the show won't be similar to the ABBA-based Mamma Mia! or Billy Joel's Movin' Out, both of which created plots around their composer's hit songs, nor will it be a straight revue, like Smokey Joe's Cafe or Ain't Misbehavin'.
Instead, 12 actors will take on the challenge of portraying the multiple moods and personalities that made Lennon who he was. None of Lennon's alter egos has been cast yet.
"Lennon's changes corresponded to our generation: There was the rocker, the hippie, the meditation guru, the transcendentalist, the political revolutionary, the house husband, and all the while there was the evolving artist," Scardino tells Variety.
Scardino and Lansbury spent more than three years in negotiations with Ono. At one point, Columbia Pictures, then developing a biography of Lennon, stepped into the bidding ring for rights to the ex-Beatle's songs, as well as to elements of his life story. That project is no longer in the works.
The project is slated to hit Broadway for the 2004-05 season.
Ono has high hopes for the musical's outcome.
"Over the past two decades, I have been experiencing the feedback from the world to John's life, statements and music," Ono says in a press release. "What we present on stage should again give people insight, encouragement, inspiration and fun, so they can go on with their lives with some assurance and hope."
Ono is also overseeing a DVD of Lennon's music. Lennon Legend, featuring 20 Lennon performances, unseen footage, promo clips and animation, is slated for release next month.
Lennon met an early demise, gunned down at age 40 by crazed fan Mark David Chapman on December 8, 1980.
Chapman is currently serving a sentence of 20 years to life in Attica State Prison in New York. He's been denied two parole requests so far, and his next hearing is scheduled for October 2004.
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