Shifting gears from Florence + The Machine, Florence Welch will explore the Jazz Age, flappers, and American Dream to score the upcoming Broadway musical “The Great Gatsby.”
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An adaptation of the classic 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, the musical will be directed by Rebecca Frecknall and produced by Len Blavatnik, Amanda Ghost and Robert Fox. Welch, along with Oscar-nominated Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman), who earned a Grammy in 2019 for Sufjan Steven’s “Mystery of Love,” and also co-produced Florence + The Machine’s 2018 album High as Hope, will write for the musical. Welch and Bartlett previously collaborated on the song “Jenny of Oldstones,” featured on the Showtime series Game of Thrones.
“This book has haunted me for a large part of my life,” said Welch in a statement. “It contains some of my favorite lines in literature. Musicals were my first love, and I feel a deep connection to Fitzgerald’s broken romanticism. It is an honor to have been offered the chance to recreate this book in song.”
On January 1, 2021, “The Great Gatsby” officially entered the public domain, leaving the classic story open for interpretation across all mediums, including “Nick,” a prequel penned by Michael Farris Smith, focused on the novel’s narrator.
“I’m thrilled, honored, and inspired to work with this company of extraordinary artists, and to get to live in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s transcendent, gorgeous words,” says the Pulitzer-winning dramatist and Gatsby book writer Martyna Majok, who also worked with Frecknall on her play “Sanctuary City.”
Producers Ghost and Fox added, “Florence’s passion for Gatsby and exceptional musical storytelling will bring this iconic love story to life in ways we have never experienced before. Martyna and Rebecca are two of the most exciting theatre artists of their generation and, together, this extraordinary team brings a thrilling new perspective to one of the most culturally significant books of all time. It’s been 100 years since ‘The Great Gatsby’ was published, and there could be no better time for a new musical adaptation of the greatest party America ever threw.”
