Ever After: new Broadway-bound musical, expected in Spring 09, to have stage reading

It has been reported that the Broadway bound musical Ever-After, score by Zina Goldrich, book and lyrics by Marcy Heisler, which is expected to arrive on Broadway in the Spring of 2009, is to have a staged-reading at 42nd Studios on 19 Jul 2007.

The reading, which is being produced by Adam Epstein, (producer of Hairspray), will feature Max von Essen as Prince Henry, Elena Shaddow as Danielle, Brynn O'Malley as Marguerite, Jan Maxwell as Baroness Rodmilla, Tim Jerome as Leonardo da Vinci, Emily Walton as Jacqueline, Mary Beth Peil as Queen Marie, Ron Holgate as King Francis, Jonathan Rayson as Gustave, Jonathan Root as Laurent and Stephen Bogardus as Le Pieu.

It is being directed by Doug Hughes and choreographed by Rob Ashford.

The musical is based on the 1998 film "Ever After: A Cinderella Story ," screenplay by Susannah Grant and direction by Andy Tennant, an adaptation of the fairy tale Cinderella.

In the movie, the Brothers Grimm arrive at the home of a wealthy Grande Dame and tell of the many legends surrounding the fable of the cinder girl before telling the "true" story of her ancestor. The daughter of a wealthy widower, who ends up being the servant/slave of her two step-sisters, until her life is transformed by a chance meeting with a Prince.

In a recent interview on Broadway Bullet, Epstein had this to say about the musical: "Now that I've done what I call "popsicals" for a number of years -- I wanted to do something that was sentimental. I want it obviously to be witty; you know, it can't be so utterly free of irony that you have no idea what you're looking at, but it will be sentimental, it will be straight up, and it will be about falling in love.

Epstein went on to say "I was watching it (Ever-After) on cable, and I was song-spotting it. I was going: "Oh my God, there's a musical number right there." And I was going: "There's a musical number there," and I went: "Oh my God, I gotta call Twentieth Century Fox [Ever After's distributor]; I gotta get this.' And then, know lo and behold, Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich -- who've long been in the wings waiting to write their show -- submitted a demo to me that was just spectacular, and beautiful, and heartbreaking. We've had one reading, we have another one in July, and then we go out of town in the fall of '08. We actually already have the theater! I can't tell you what it is. But we're on our way with it, so it's exciting."

Ever After is one of two projects that producer Adam Epstein is bringing to Broadway. The other show is Cry-Baby, based on the 1990 musical film of the same name, directed by John Waters.

Cry-Baby is to have its world-premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, from 6 Nov - 16 Dec 2007. The musical has book by Mark O�Donnell and Thomas Meehan, lyrics and music by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, and is directed by Mark Brokaw.

The musical's synopsis reads "Baltimore 1954. Everyone likes Ike, nobody likes Communism and Wade �Cry-Baby� Walker is the baddest boy in town. He's a rebel with a cause � truth, justice and the pursuit of rock 'n' roll � and when he falls for a good girl, his square little suburb rocks around the clock."

Cry-Baby is expected to play Broadway in 2008.