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Working girl

A Broadway musical version is in the works as of 2017, with a score to be written by Cyndi Lauper from Fox Stage Productions and Aged in Wood Productions. For Aged in Wood, the producers were Robyn Goodman and Josh Fiedler. Instead of a production company on Working Girl, the musical adaptation was switched to a license production by Aged in Wood Productions since Disney took over ownership of Fox Stage in 2019.

Bridget Carpenter and Tony Winner Christopher Ashley Join Creative Team of Broadway-Aimed Working Girl Musical

BY ANDREW GANS

SEP 25, 2019

The musical, based on the film of the same name, features a score by Tony winner Cyndi Lauper.

Tony-winning Come From Away director Christopher Ashley will direct the Broadway-aimed musical Working Girl, with music and lyrics by Grammy, Emmy, and Tony winner Cyndi Lauper.

Bridget Carpenter (11.22.63, Friday Night Lights) has also joined the creative team as the book writer, replacing New Girl writer and Tigers Be Still playwright Kim Rosenstock, who has withdrawn due to scheduling conflicts.

Based on the 1988 film and presented by special arrangement with Buena Vista Theatrical, the musical is slated to have an out-of-town developmental production during the 2021–2022 season. Dates and venue have yet to be announced.

Ashley, who is the current artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse, previously joined forces with Carpenter on the stage version of Freaky Friday, which Carpenter later adapted for Disney Channel. Ashley will be represented on Broadway later this season as the director of the new musical Diana, about the late Princess of Wales.

Directed by Mike Nichols, Working Girl received the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The film follows an ambitious secretary from Staten Island who facilitates a large-scale merger in the absence of her boss - by posing as her.

The cast of the movie included Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Oliver Platt, Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Nordling, Olympia Dukakis, and David Duchovny.

Cyndi Lauper on Writing the Working Girl Musical and What Song Will Not Be in the Show

BY RUTHIE FIERBERG

MAR 22, 2018

The Tony winner talks about adapting the beloved movie with her ”Time After Time” songwriting partner.

When Cyndi Lauper stopped by Watch What Happens Live March 21, the Tony-winning Kinky Boots composer offered an update on her score for the previously announced musical adaptation of Working Girl.

Lauper has teamed up with her “Time After Time” co-writer Rob Hyman “because they wanted it to be like the ’80s,” says Lauper.

“I was very nervous about starting because I don’t even know how Kinky Boots is doing what it's doing,” she says of her Broadway show still currently running at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre. “I was talking to Rod last week and he said just to start. So I did. I wrote Tess’ soliloquy and I finished it.”

The musical, based on the 1988 Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, and Sigourney Weaver–led film, is being produced by Robyn Goodman with a book by TV writer and playwright Kim Rosenstock (New Girl, Tigers Be Still).

Series host Andy Cohen asked if the Carly Simon's signature opening song “Let the River Run”—which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1989—will be in the musical’s score. “It doesn’t fit because ‘Let the River Run’ is about the community of people that traveled to go to the workplace,” says Lauper. “This story is about a woman in the workplace being prevented to move forward so she had to think outside the box and break all the rules. That’s what this is about. It’s not about that place. It’s a great place to start a movie; that’s a movie song.”

Lauper also revealed that she was nearly part of the original movie, but on the screen: “You know they wanted me to go in for that role and I wouldn’t go in.” Hear the full story in the video below.

Cyndi Lauper Will Pen Score for a Broadway-Aimed Working Girl Musical

BY ANDREW GANS

JUN 06, 2017

Kim Rosenstock will write the book. 

Cyndi Lauper, who won a Tony Award for her score to the long-running Kinky Boots, will pen the score for a Broadway-bound musical adaptation of the hit film Working Girl.

The new musical, based on the Twentieth Century Fox motion picture written by Kevin Wade, will feature a book by New Girl writer and Tigers Be Still playwright Kim Rosenstock.

A production timeline will be announced at a later date.

Lauper said in a statement, “I'm really excited for so many reasons to start composing the score for Working Girl. I love the film, and its story about a woman’s very unconventional road to success in the ‘80s is something I know a lot about. Women are still fighting for fundamental rights and equal pay! It’s also laugh-out-loud funny, which is why Kim Rosenstock is the perfect person to write the book. Plus, I get to work with Robyn Goodman, who is really smart and a great producer, as well as Fox Stage Productions.”

In a joint statement, Robyn Goodman of Aged In Wood Productions and Bob Cohen of Fox Stage Productions added, “Working Girl was a groundbreaking depiction of a working-class woman determined to succeed in the cutthroat, male-dominated corporate world of the 1980s. Funny and smart, this now-iconic tale is just as relevant today—and who better to adapt it for Broadway than Cyndi Lauper, who's been a change maker in music since the ‘80s, and Kim Rosenstock of the hit TV series New Girl? We’re very excited to have Cyndi and Kim on board as the creators of Working Girl as it becomes a new 21st century musical, and we know audiences will be thrilled as well.”

Directed by Mike Nichols, Working Girl premiered in 1988 and went on to receive the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy and an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The film follows an ambitious secretary from Staten Island who facilitates a large-scale merger in the absence of her boss—by posing as her.

The cast of the film includes Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Oliver Platt, Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Nordling, Olympia Dukakis, and David Duchovny.

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