A musical based on Cher’s life will open in Chicago, Illinois before its Broadway debut next year (2018).
Cher first announced she was in talks with Broadway producers back in 2012, when she revealed she would be assisting writers adapting her rise to stardom for the stage. In 2015, she revealed she had been working with Jersey Boys playwright Rick Elice, whose first draft of the script was completed last year.
In June, Cher announced the show would debut next year and now the musical’s first dates have been revealed. The production will hit the stage at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago in June, before transferring to the Neil Simon Theatre in New York.
“My life as a musical on Broadway,” a statement from Cher reads. “It seems crazy, exciting and bizarre – but that’s probably how my life seems to most people.”
Earlier reports suggested the musical will feature songs from Cher’s back catalogue and chronicle life from her childhood in Los Angeles to her reinvention as a pop icon and movie star, following her days as a member of pop duo Sonny & Cher and the end of her turbulent marriage to Sonny Bono.
The production will be produced by Jeffrey Seller and Flody Suarez and Pitch Perfect’s Jason Moore, who previously took charge of the stage shows Avenue Q, Shrek The Musical, and Jerry Springer: The Opera, will direct.
The crew staged a top secret read-through in January and the New York Post reported actresses Jillian Mueller, Lena Hall and Lesli Margherita played Cher in different stages of her life. Jarrod Spector, who starred as Barry Mann in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, played Bono.
Official casting details will be announced in the near future.
