Academy Award-Winning Film BLACK ORPHEUS to Be Adapted to Broadway Musical

According to The New York Times Arts Beat blog, Broadway producer Stephen C. Byrd (2012's "Streetcar Named Desire", 2008's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof") is developing a new musical production of the 1959 Academy Award-winning film BLACK ORPHEUS.  The new stage version would feature songs from the film, including the samba and bossa nova music of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá.

Mr. Byrd acquired the rights to adapt the film to the stage and has taken on Brazilian theater directors and writers, Claudio Botelho and Charles Moeller to complete a script by year's end. No director is currently attached to the project. The goal is to bring the stage musical to Broadway in time for the 2013-14 season. The producer is currently in the process of raising the necessary funds to put up the production. 

BLACK ORPHEUS was made by the French director Marcel Camus and is based on Vinicius de Moraes' popular 1950's Brazilian play. The story is a retelling of "the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in a Rio de Janeiro shantytown." 

"I've seen the movie 25 times, at minimum, and always thought the story was highly theatrical and the music was transfixing," commented Mr. Byrd. "I'm hoping to cast at least the principal roles with well-known Brazilian singers and actors, because I think this show will succeed as long as it's as authentically Brazilian as possible."

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