You may think you’ve read this news before but no, you’re not stuck in a time loop like the luckless weatherman Phil Connors. The musical version of Groundhog Day – long-rumoured and then eagerly awaited – is officially coming to Broadway. The “first announcement of a new Broadway musical”, based on the popular 1993 film, gives an opening night of 9 March 2017, with previews starting from 23 January.
The music and lyrics are by Tim Minchin, whose award-winning adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda has been running in the West End since 2011 and on Broadway since 2013. Groundhog Day reunites him with Matilda’s choreographer Peter Darling, designer Rob Howell and the director Matthew Warchus, who is set to take over from Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic later this year. The book is by Danny Rubin, who devised the story, in which Connors must relive the same day again and again after he is dispatched to cover the eponymous event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Rubin co-wrote the film with Harold Ramis.
It’s more than 18 months since news of the musical first broke. Minchin has said that the project was once being considered by Stephen Sondheim, but that “he is now happy that we’re making a go of it. We have Steve’s blessing.” Last year, in a webchat with the Guardian, Minchin said: “I’m incredibly impatient to see [the show] on its feet … I love playing [Seeing You, a song from the musical performed at his Hyde Park gig] and people seem to react really strongly to it. I hasten to add, not all the songs are so emotional! There’s heaps of comedy and a predictable tendency towards too many lyrics.”
Casting will be announced at a later date.
