“Beaches,” the tearjerking 1980s novel-turned-movie about female friendship, will be staged on Broadway next spring, when the long-in-development musical arrives for a limited run before going on tour.
The show, attempting an unusual strategy in response to the difficult economics of Broadway, plans to run just under 24 weeks in New York, hoping that will incentivize ticket buyers and that the Broadway imprimatur will then help boost its appeal on the road. The show is set to begin previews March 27 and to open April 22 at the Majestic Theater; it is scheduled to close Sept. 6 and then start a national tour.
“Beaches” is about a longtime friendship between two women who first meet as children. Their relationship waxes and wanes through romantic, professional and health challenges, but ultimately changes each of their lives. Iris Rainer Dart wrote the 1985 novel, which was adapted into a film in 1988 starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey.
“There’s never been a better time for this particular story,” said the musical’s lead producer, Jennifer Maloney-Prezioso. “It’s a love story about friendship, and I think the world needs that right now — a world where there’s a loneliness epidemic, and friendships are such an essential part of getting through that.”
The musical has been in development for more than a decade, with Dart as one of the writers. It was first staged in 2014 at Signature Theater in Arlington, Va., and then in 2015 at Drury Lane Theater in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. Those productions were directed by Eric Schaeffer, and featured music by David Austin and a book by Dart and Thom Thomas. Thomas died, and Austin and Schaeffer were replaced before the next production, in 2024, at Theater Calgary in Canada, where the music was by Mike Stoller and the director was Lonny Price, with Matt Cowart as co-director.
Like the Calgary production, the Broadway show will star Jessica Vosk (as Midler’s character in the film) and Kelli Barrett (as Hershey’s character); Price and Cowart will again direct. The book is credited to Dart and Thomas; Dart also wrote the lyrics, and Stoller, who once crafted songs for Elvis Presley, wrote the music, with Austin credited as a collaborator. The stage score will, of course, include the movie’s Grammy-winning song, “Wind Beneath My Wings.”
“We’ve had a long journey, and we really took a while to get to the right team,” Maloney-Prezioso said.
The initial post-Calgary plan, announced in March, was to tour first, and then come to Broadway. But Maloney-Prezioso said that once she was offered a Broadway house, she decided to reverse course. “Now we get to go on the road with a Broadway musical, as opposed to a Broadway-bound musical,” she said.
The show is modest in size for a Broadway musical, with a cast of 12. “We wanted to make it very producible and make sure that it could go out on the road,” Maloney-Prezioso said. “This story has global appeal. So we wanted to make sure that we got it right, but also that it could live — I’ve always wanted to make sure that we didn’t just have a show that opened but a show that could run.”
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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