Hugh Jackman, who has trod the boards of Broadway before, is in talks to head back to Manhattan’s Great White Way to headline a stage adaptation of the 1954 Warner Brothers movie musical A Star Is Born.
Jackman is lining up to play the role of Norman Maine, an alcoholic movie star whose career is on the decline. James Mason played the part in the original film opposite Judy Garland.
According to a report in the New York Post, the new stage version will feature all of the Harold Arlen-Ira Gershwin songs from the original film. Michael John La Chuisa, who scripted the play The Wild Party, is adapting the film’s Academy Award winning screenplay by Moss Hart and Dorothy Parker. He is also serving as the show’s musical supervisor. The producers hope to workshop the show later this year and then open on Broadway in 2009 or 2010.
Previously, Jackman won a Tony award in 2004 for starring in the musical The Boy From Oz. He is also lined up for a possible new film version of the musical Carousel.
