Another Steve Martin Movie "Leap of Faith" Heads for Broadway Musicalization
By Ernio Hernandez
21 Jun 2004
"Leap of Faith" — the 1992 film starring Steve Martin and Debra Winger — looks to be making the leap to stage as a new musical featuring music by Alan Menken, according to Variety.
The producing team of Steven Baruch, Richard Frankel, Marc Routh and Thomas Viertel (whose last names interchangeably identify the group) will present the musical. The team have had their hands in recent Broadway stagings of The Producers, Hairspray and Little Shop of Horrors.
Leap of Faith would mark the first Broadway musical that composer Menken — of Beauty and the Beast and the upcoming The Little Mermaid — has penned directly for the Broadway stage (Little Shop took the long Off Broadway-to-film-to-Broadway route).
Menken is known for his work on Disney animated movies including "Aladdin," "Beauty and the Beast," "Pocahantas" "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Home on the Range" and "Hercules." For Leap of Faith, he teams with lyricist Glenn Slater (Newyorkers, That's Life) for a book penned by Janus Cercone — who wrote the screenplay.
The 1992 film starred Steve Martin as a fake faith healer who travels with a band of con artist helpers swindling townsfolk from one place to the next with their faux revival, until they break down in a small town and he falls for a local. The movie also featured stage performers Liam Neeson (The Crucible), Philip Seymour Hoffman, (Long Day's Journey Into Night) and La Chanze (Once on this Island).
The movie-turned-musical follows a number of non-musical films undergoing musicalization already in the works including Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (another movie featuring Steve Martin as a con artist), The Color Purple, Legally Blonde, Cry Baby, Opposite of Sex, Billy Elliot and Young Frankenstein. The success of such recent hits as The Producers and Hairspray lead the way.
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