Good news, old sport: Florence Welch is writing the music for an upcoming Great Gatsby musical

By Tatiana Tenreyro  |  April 28, 2021 | 2:39pm
Music Features Florence Welch
Good news, old sport: Florence Welch is writing the music for an upcoming Great Gatsby musical
Florence Welch Photo: Ian Gavan

The Great Gatsby entered public domain this January, so the possibilities for even more adaptations seemed endless. While there have been multiple onscreen adaptations that don’t quite do the book justice, the novel is now getting the stage treatment—and it actually sounds pretty promising! This time, it’ll be a musical and Florence Welch is co-writing the lyrics and composing the score with Thomas Bartlett (a.k.a. Doveman), who produced Sufjan Stevens’ Oscar-nominated song “Mystery Of Love” for Call Me By Your Name. Welch wrote the song “Over The Love” for the Leonardo DiCaprio-led 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby, so having her write the music for this seems like a perfect match. It’s a bit of a missed opportunity to have “Green Light” singer Lorde write the music, but we digress.

Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok will write the book, and it’ll be directed by Rebecca Frecknall, who helmed a new version of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters at London’s Almeida Theater last year. This Great Gatsby adaptation is also produced by Len Blavatnik (who worked on Moulin Rouge! and Jagged Little Pill), and English singer-songwriter and former president of Epic Records Amanda Ghost, in association with Robert Fox, who worked as an executive producer on The Crown.

“This book has haunted me for a large part of my life. It contains some of my favorite lines in literature. Musicals were my first love, and I feel a deep connection to Fitzgerald’s broken romanticism. It is an honor to have been offered the chance to recreate this book in song,” says Welch in a press release.

Majok adds, “I’m thrilled, honored, and inspired to work with this company of extraordinary artists, and to get to live in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s transcendent, gorgeous words. I’m also overjoyed to be reunited with Rebecca Frecknall, with whom I had the most wonderful experience working on my play, Sanctuary City.” Here’s hoping the musical will be far better than any of the countless adaptations we’ve seen so far.

 
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