Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom to Debut in 2005

By Robert Simonson
April 8, 2003

Baz Luhrmann will bring a stage version of his film "Strictly Ballroom" to life sometime in 2005, the director told Playbill On-Line.

"I am only a few weeks away from committing to a musical team," said Luhrmann, who is now in New York casting for the U.S. tour of Broadway's La Bohème. "It will be after `Alexander the Great,' so it will be around 2005."

"Alexander the Great" is Luhrmann's next film project. The movie will star Leonardo DiCaprio as the legendary Macedonian conqueror, and co-star Nicole Kidman. Luhrman said he recently returned from Jordan where he was scouting locations with the King of Jordan in the royal's Black Hawk helicopter.

Since "Strictly Ballroom"'s release, observers saw the property — about a fiery ballroom dancer who thumbs his nose at the ballroom community and takes an unglamorous partner under his wing — as a perfect possibility for a Broadway worthy musical.

"For 13 years every producer has chased it, like maniacally," Luhrmann previously told Playbill On-Line. The goal, he said, would not be a conventional Broadway theatre, but "to take a space and treat it as an environmental production." Luhrmann said he's begun work on "Strictly Ballroom" with a composer, but he declined to mention any names.

"You wouldn't believe the composers who have wanted to do this, since the [film's release]," Luhrmann said. "Both pop — very famous, the most famous of pop composers — and also the Broadway folk."

Luhrmann is also developing a stage version of his film "Moulin Rouge."