Frank Wildhorn's "Bonnie & Clyde" to Premiere at La Jolla!

"La Jolla Playhouse announced today the addition of the world-premiere musical Bonnie & Clyde, to its 2009-10 season, replacing The Big Time. This production features music by Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel), lyrics by Tony Award-winner Don Black (Sunset Boulevard, Song and Dance), book by Ivan Menchell (The Cemetery Club, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and direction by Jeff Calhoun (Deaf West's Big River and Pippin, Grease!). Bonnie & Clyde will run November 10 - December 20, 2009 in The Playhouse's Mandell Weiss Theatre.
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Responding to media requests, composer Wildhorn said "When I started working on this show, no one was talking about Bonnie & Clyde. Now, two new books have been published, a remake of the Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway classic film is in production, and the FBI recently released close to a thousand pages of classified memos on the infamous couple. Clearly, they are once again piquing the interest of a troubled America.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Frank_Wildhorns_Bonnie_Clyde_to_Premiere_at_La_Jolla_Playhouse_in_November_20090605



Didn't see a thread for this...did this slip by everyone's eyes?


Unbelievable that Frank Wildhorn is able to get two world premieres this year! Wonderland: Alice's New Musical Adventure in both Tampa and Houston and now this at La Jolla. However, seems that they are pushing Wonderland more-so for Broadway (or so it would appear!) and B&C maybe for the next season! Maybe another hat-trick coming up...especially since Havana is due up, and there's still the completed projects of Camille Claudel, Count of Monte Cristo (pending translation), Rudolf - The Last Kiss (pending translation) and Waiting for the Moon!

"Thanks for posting this! I def saw this but didn't want to start a thread since it might turn into a bash session, oh well. Love some of the songs on the demo! This sounds wonderful "

Ah I'm always getting an earful about Wildhorn anyway...! Love some of the demo too...but don't like a large part of it either. Some of Bonnie's songs are wonderful - especially "You're All I Ever Wanted" and "I Don't Know the Way"!

Wonder if Ms Brandi Burkhardt will be involved with this one? Would make sense now that/why Kennedy is involved with Wonderland (although I don't think too many people would think Brandi a believable mom anyway...way too pretty + young!). Of course there's that whole elephant in the room-disengagement thing. Regardless, love to see her do a Wildhorn-original!

Wasn't Count of Monte Cristo written in English and later translated or am I making that up?

I'm excited for Bonnie and Clyde. I saw Dracula's world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse and that was a lot of fun. I'll be waiting for a critic to make some sort of snide Clyde/Hyde remark though.

"Laura Osnes did the reading and she'll be done with South Pacific by then. "

How could I forget that! She'll most likely do it...but I'd still LOVE to see Brandi..oh well!


"Wasn't Count of Monte Cristo written in English and later translated or am I making that up?

I'm excited for Bonnie and Clyde. I saw Dracula's world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse and that was a lot of fun. I'll be waiting for a critic to make some sort of snide Clyde/Hyde remark though. "

...Monte Cristo was done in English song-wise, but I'm not sure about the book aspect of it. Murphy is credited to writing it, but I'm sure they have added pieces due to translation issues.


And I was thinking the SAME thing...Jekyll & HYDE and Bonnie & Clyde. Hopefully the critics are more creative then they were with the dissing of A Tale of Two Cities .

I do like this score more than 'The Civil War'...but I have to wonder why Frank even bothered venturing back into the more-country sounding stuff...it didn't exactly go over too well with TCW..? But who knows? .. He's all over the map as of late: Rock-sounding (DRACULA, the musical - Graz production especially), classical-sounding (Rudolf - The Last Kiss & The Count of Monte Cristo), pop-ish in a way that almost sounds Legally Blonde-esque (Wonderland: Alice's...), and now country again... hmmm! I wonder if he stuck with this because of Linda Eder? She loves country + just released that album! BTW: Anyone see her sing 'New York, New York' once more at the horse race today?

...and...also has a story/plot this time. Still more excited for Wonderland though to be honest!

I hope "Anything Can Happen" found a place in the show too...it's the first thing heard from the show (sung on what may be Linda's best album - "It's No Secret Anymore); but agree: love just about everything I have heard from this score (save the Cat song Rob Evan had to sing ..!)

This definitely looks interesting to me. I think the source material is surprisingly ripe for musical potential and certainly love some of Wildhorn's works. Since La Jolla is so ridiculously close to where I am, I'll have to go see this. Wow, what a great year to be near California - The First Wives Club Musical and now this. I do have a question though - where are people hearing the demo for the show? I know some of is stuff for Alice is available on the official site, but I can't seem to find anything for this.

The demo is not fully legal yet, unfortunately. Usually in conjunction with a world premiere Wildhorn & Co. will release two or three songs as a promo-sampler, especially if it's not headed straight for Broadway (which I don't think this one is -- Wonderland came first, and I doubt he (of all people) would want to compete with himself...!

"Are song cycles supposed to have plots??? "
Ha, well I guess not...but I think the two-acts and the material upon which it was based made people believe it was going to be more plot-oriented...which unfortunately is the reason why a lot of people didn't like it...

Wow, what a great year to be near California - The First Wives Club Musical and now this.

That had to be sarcasm.

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