While Bollywood and Broadway musicals have lots in common -- flashy costumes, song-and-dance numbers and dramatic love stories- - few musicals have actually drawn inspiration from India’s popular film industry.
All of this is set to change by this time next year, as director Mira Nair and the team behind the 2001 film “Monsoon Wedding” get ready to bring the story of a large Indian family rushing to plan an elaborate wedding ceremony, to Broadway.
According to Playbill, the casting notice for the show noted that the story revolved around "a stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten event planner, and relatives from around the world during preparations for an arranged marriage in India."
Nair herself confirmed the show was in the works while speaking at the The Indo American Arts Council’s First Annual Literary Festival on November 9. "We just finished casting for Monsoon Wedding on Broadway yesterday [Friday],” she told the audience. Nair added that the show will premiere in November 2015.
When it premieres, Monsoon Wedding will join the musical Bombay Dreams as the second Bollywood-influenced musical to hit Broadway. Bombay Dreams premiered on the Great White Way in 2004 after a two year run in London.
The adaptation will also join the upcoming London musical version of Bend It Like Beckham as being the second 2000s-era film about the South Asian diaspora to hit the stage next year.
IN-DEPTH
- 'Bend It Like Beckham' - The Musical is Coming
- A Bollywood Version of Romeo and Juliet Is Born Off Broadway
- Kal Penn's New Film Dives Into Bhopal Disaster, 30 Years Later