![]() That was a tough combination to find … until we found Ben and Sam." "We also realized we needed a sound that was contemporary and yet timeless. "Some great music had been written, but it wasn't enough for a whole show," says Shor. (Epps took over after a stint by Lonny Price.) ![]() After the opening was postponed in early 2012 they all departed, as did director Joel Zwick. Oscar and Grammy winner Leslie Bricusse originally was set to create the score but was succeeded by Michelle Citrin, Michael Garin and Josh Nelson. A June 2012 premiere was announced.Īrch wrote the libretto. Impressed with Epps, then-executive director Stephen Eich and the theater's record of sending works to New York and London, he asked Pasadena to join in developing the show with hopes of a Broadway or West End run. About seven years ago, says Shor, "I approached Sony about the rights and asked Jeff if he would work on the book." A few years later, Shor talked with the playhouse. Then, being a parent, I realized we do for our kids what we don't do for ourselves." So Jonah went to New York to find Annie, and Sam went to find Jonah in a tale that combines romance with "the yearning we all have to believe great things can happen."Īrch and his business partner, David Shor, a Santa Barbara-based entertainment executive, had discussed making "Sleepless" into a musical. "But I didn't know how to get them there…. "I knew where my characters had to end up," says Arch, 58, a Malibu resident who has written for film and television. So he began what would become his first produced screenplay with the finale - an Empire State Building rendezvous inspired by memories of a college girlfriend sobbing over Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr's thwarted reunion in the 1957 movie "An Affair to Remember." His play had lacked "a big ending," he says. "How could I tell my kids about going after their dreams if I didn't go after mine?" In the mid-1980s Arch had taken a break from writing after critics ripped his 1985 off-Broadway play "For Sale." The birth of his second child in 1989 prompted him to try again. "But it gave us time to get things where we want them." The decision to delay was difficult, he says. Epps, the playhouse's artistic director, assumed directing duties in January. The show has been revamped and new songwriters brought in. That can be a tricky proposition, so tricky that the production's premiere was postponed for a year. "When you take a project with such iconic source material, you have to figure out how to transform it into a creature for the stage so you aren't just doing 'the movie' and sticking some songs in," says Epps. ![]() The TriStar Pictures film was a box-office hit, its fans drawn to its unabashed love story, stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and a now-famous final scene atop the Empire State Building. ![]() Sam ends up talking on the nationally broadcast program about how much he misses his wife, intriguing listeners around the country, including Annie, a Baltimore reporter who's engaged to a nice guy but finds her soul stirred by this voice in the night. Young Jonah calls a radio show seeking a new love for his dad, Sam, a widowed architect in Seattle.
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