Trevor Nunn
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The musical version of
Gone with the Wind has set London dates. It will begin performances at the New London Theatre on 3 April, 2008 and open on 22 April.
As previously reported, Trevor Nunn will direct the show, which features a score by Margaret Martin. Nunn said of his new project, “Having now worked on adapting two vast novels for the stage, Nicholas Nickleby and Les Misérables, I am drawn to the challenge of telling Margaret Mitchell’s epic story through words, music and the imaginative resources of the theatre. The major turning point of American history is conveyed through Mitchell’s extraordinary cast of characters, black and white, as they pursue their different ideas of the future, and of the past.”
Set in 1860s Atlanta, Georgia, Gone with the Wind follows the story of the 17-year-old Scarlett O’Hara, the eldest of three daughters living a life of luxury on their father’s plantation. When President Lincoln demands the end of slavery in the South, the Civil War begins and Scarlett’s life and that of her family are thrown into turmoil. Her tempestuous relationship with army captain Rhett Butler serves as a metaphor for the irrevocable changes being wrought upon America itself.
Gone with the Wind, published in 1936, is one of the bestselling novels of the 20th century and won author Mitchell the Pulitzer Prize. Three years later in 1939, the film adaptation, starring Clarke Gable and Vivien Leigh, made box office history as one of the highest-grossing films of all time and is regarded as one of the bona-fide classics of popular cinema.
Casting and further production information is still to be announced.