Librettist of the Off-Broadway hit THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS, David Thompson, is currently working on new musical projects with composer Strew and director Scott Ellis.
With Stew and Heidi Rodewald, he's developing a musical version of the 1930 film "The Blue Angel," by Josef von Sternberg. The film made star Marlene Dietrich famous when she played the role of Lola Lola, a cabaret performer working at "The Blue Angel" club.
Thompson is also partnering up with director of CURTAINS and THE LITTLE DOG WHO LAUGHED, Scott Ellis on a musical adaptation of the 1934 film "Little Miss Marker," starring Shirley Temple. "Little Miss Marker" tells the story of a little girl left by her gambling father as a "marker" with a group of gangsters. When her father dies, the gangsters keep her, and grow to love her.
This project will use music from Harold Arlen for the score.
Stew rocked Broadway the way it never had before when his musical, Passing Strange, opened in 2008. It won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical and made a star out of its writer, Stew, and his writing partner, Heidi Rodewald. Stew and Rodewald return to American Songbook (they performed in the series in 2003) with music from their early career and the band they founded in 1995, The Negro Problem. The group was ironically named to highlight the music industry's problems with an all white band fronted by a black man whose influences were not only Stevie Wonder but also Stephen Sondheim. Stew's discography includes four recordings with The Negro Problem, and another four as Stew, two of which were named Album of the Year by Entertainment Weekly: Guest Host and The Naked Dutch Painter and Other Songs.
Scott Ellis he has directed numerous Off-Broadway and Broadway productions including A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (1990), 110 IN THE SHADE (1992) and CURTAINS. He has been nominated for the Tony Award as Best Director (Musical) four times: in 1994 for a revival of SHE LOVES ME, in 1997 for STEEL PIER, in 1998 for a revival of 1776, and in 2004 for a revival of TWELVE ANGRY MEN.
He received the 1991 Drama Desk Award- Outstanding Director of a Musical- for AND THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND.
