Baz the Great! - A Baz Luhrmann Fansite

Baz Luhrmann will bring a stage version of his film "Strictly Ballroom" to life sometime in 2005, the director told Playbill On-Line.

"I am only a few weeks away from committing to a musical team," said Luhrmann, who is now in New York casting for the U.S. tour of Broadway's La Bohème. "It will be after `Alexander the Great,' so it will be around 2005."

"Alexander the Great" is Luhrmann's next film project. The movie will star Leonardo DiCaprio as the legendary Macedonian conqueror, and co-star Nicole Kidman. Luhrman said he recently returned from Jordan where he was scouting locations with the King of Jordan in the royal's Black Hawk helicopter.

Since "Strictly Ballroom"'s release, observers saw the property — about a fiery ballroom dancer who thumbs his nose at the ballroom community and takes an unglamorous partner under his wing — as a perfect possibility for a Broadway worthy musical.

"For 13 years every producer has chased it, like maniacally," Luhrmann previously told Playbill On-Line. The goal, he said, would not be a conventional Broadway theatre, but "to take a space and treat it as an environmental production." Luhrmann said he's begun work on "Strictly Ballroom" with a composer, but he declined to mention any names.

"You wouldn't believe the composers who have wanted to do this, since the [film's release]," Luhrmann said. "Both pop — very famous, the most famous of pop composers — and also the Broadway folk."

Luhrmann is also developing a stage version of his film "Moulin Rouge."

Question and Answer - Baz Luhrmann
Broadway.com, 7 April 2003,

You're committing to bringing Strictly Ballroom to Broadway. This piece has been with you for 20 years. Didn't it originate as a stage piece when you were young?
I did as a play at drama school. Then I had my own opera and theater company at the same time. So I did it as a play and then we did it at a theater festival in Czechoslovakia. And I turned it into a movie-the other night, Bill Clinton said he's seen it six times. I was very impressed. I thought, why didn't you say that when you were president? And now, it's taking a final step back in full circle to become a musical.

Where did the idea of it come from?
I was at drama school and I was fascinated with this idea which I continued throughout the Red Curtain Trilogy [which also includes Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge] of primary myth uniting…that story shape that can play through time and geography placing it in heightened creative worlds. And it's the stuff of which musicals are made but kind of more to prevent metaphor. It's like Moliere, you present and archetypal character, you celebrate primary human emotions but you have a sort of metaphorical idea underneath. I was a ballroom dancer as a kid. I needed to set the show in a world that was exotic and strange but close in that it could be Hollywood or it could be Washington. You know, the fading star, the oppressive regime…

I know you've had a few workshops of the show recently. How far along are you?
I've done several workshops and I'm about to make a commitment about the musical team. I won't say who they are because it'll be a big announcement and I need to make sure that we're secure on everything. It's the project I'd like to do after Alexander the Great. So I guess we'd get going in 2005.

Baz Luhrmann Talks About Strictly Ballroom, the Stage Musical — a Natural for NYC
Playbill.com, 28 November 2002

Baz Luhrmann told Playbill On-Line that his theatrical producing company, Bazmark Live, is developing his hit 1992 film, Strictly Ballroom, into a stage musical.

Since the picture's release, observers saw the property — about a fiery ballroom dancer who thumbs his nose at the ballroom community and takes an unglamorous partner under his wing — as a perfect possibility for a Broadway worthy musical. The picture had a natural music-and dance setting, characters with heart and the sort of physical and emotional transformation of character that you find in great musicals of the past.

"For 13 years every producer has chased it, like maniacally," Luhrmann told Playbill On-Line. "We'll own it and control it, and the question is whether I direct it or not. Everything we do is based on a life decision."

The most recent "life decision" of Luhrmann and designer wife Catherine Martin is moving to New York to stage and oversee their hit production of La Bohème on Broadway (previews begin Nov. 29 at the Broadway Theatre). Their take on the Puccini classic was a sensation in their native Australia in the 1990s.

"We wanted to live in New York," Luhrmann said. "Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge, we're developing. It will take a while."

News of stage versions of his films, Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom, has circulated for some months, but in the weeks leading to La Bohème, he shared more information.

Is Strictly Ballroom, the musical, possible for a Broadway start?

"New York has a fabulous ballroom culture and history," Luhrmann said. "There are a lot of spaces I'd like to do it in. Roseland would be great, or the Hammerstein Ballroom would be great to do it in — that's a fabulous space."

The goal, he said, would not be a conventional Broadway theatre, but "to take a space and treat it as an environmental production."

Luhrmann said he's begun work on Strictly Ballroom with a composer, but he declined to mention any names.

"You wouldn't believe the composers who have wanted to do this, since the [film's release]," Luhrmann said. "Both pop — very famous, the most famous of pop composers — and also the Broadway folk."

Lurhmann added, "Everyone sees the natural potential of [it]. It's a dance musical — song and dance."

The Australian-set movie starred Paul Mercurio, Tara Morice, Bill Hunter, Barry Otto, Gia Carides, Peter Whitford and John Hannan.