Sing Street is coming to the stage.
John Carney’s delightful and criminally underrated 2016 film — about a group of ’80s Irish teens who start a band — is getting a musical adaptation. The new staging will premiere as part of New York Theatre Workshop’s 2019-2020 season, with Tony winner Enda Walsh writing the book and Carney and Gary Clark writing the music and lyrics.
Walsh previously adapted Carney’s film Once into a stage musical, and that show similarly premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2011, before going on to win eight Tonys.
Rebecca Taichman (who won a Tony for Indecent) is directing the new Sing Street, with choreography by Sonya Tayeh.
Sing Street premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016, starring Ferdia Walsh-Peelo as Conor, an introverted teen living in 1985 Dublin who starts a band to impress a girl (Lucy Boynton). Jack Reynor, Aidan Gillen, and Mark McKenna also starred, and although the film only earned $13.6 million at the global box office, it won over critics and snagged a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical or Comedy.
It also gave us one of the catchiest movie songs of the last few years: the synth-heavy, instant-classic “Drive It Like You Stole It.” Here’s hoping Carney and Clark have even more ’80s-infused earworms in the works for the stage version.
