Librettist-songwriter Rupert Holmes told Playbill On-Line in its Aug. 27 Brief Encounter interview that his wish for his planned musical of Remember WENN would be to woo the TV cast to the stage.

"There are a couple songs from 'Remember WENN' [the series] that I know if I didn't have them in the musical — there's a very hardcore cult on the web — there would be an uprising," Holmes said. "Also, my goal would be to get as many people who did the series to do the show. [When I was working on the series] I would look at the cast and say, 'this is a musical comedy cast.' There was Amanda Naughton and Melissa Dye, who're in Into the Woods, Mary Stout, who's in Beauty and the Beast, Carolee Carmello and John Bedford Lloyd..."

The Helen Hayes Theatre in Nyack, NY, has announced the new musical version of the nostalgic cable sitcom series, set in a Pittsburgh radio station in the 1930s, for early 2003. Holmes won the Tony Award for Best Book and Best Score for The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 1986. The show also took the Best Musical and Best Director (Musical) Tonys. George Rose won for Best Actor (Musical).

To view the Rupert Holmes interview, click Brief Encounter.

— By Kenneth Jones