Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher (Golden Boy, South Pacific, The Light in the Piazza) helmed the musical that has a score by Tony winner Brown (Parade, Honeymoon in Vegas) and a book by Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner Norman (The Secret Garden, 'Night Mother).
The musical ended its Broadway run May 18 after 137 performances. Despite its brief run, The Bridges of Madison County earned two 2014 Tony Awards, for Best Score and Best Orchestrations.
While limited international rights are currently available, theatres across the U.S. will have to wait to produce The Bridges of Madison County until the conclusion of a national tour, which is scheduled to launch in 2015.
Tony Award nominee Kelli O'Hara (The Light in the Piazza, South Pacific, Nice Work If You Can Get It) and Steven Pasquale (Reasons to Be Pretty, Far From Heaven, "Rescue Me") led the cast as Italian-American housewife Francesca Johnson and National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid, respectively.
A Ghostlight Records cast album preserves the score. The romantic musical centers on a brief, four-day love affair between a National Geographic photographer and an Italian-American housewife in 1965 Iowa. Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep starred in the 1995 film adaptation. The stage production and film were based on the best-selling Robert James Waller novel.
"Critics and audience members alike have raved about Jason Robert Brown's beautiful score since this show was in previews and audiences of all ages have been moved by Marsha's wonderful adaptation of the novel," said MTI president Drew Cohen in a statement. "So many of our customers, in particular community theatres around the country, have expressed interest in sharing this powerful love story with their audiences."
"Bridges takes us deep into the heart of our country and the very moving situation of a beautiful young woman leaving Italy and suddenly living in Iowa, and her joyful discovery of love and painful but rewarding sacrifice," added original director Sher in a statement. "These are the deeper elements of our romance-location, contrasts and an event where something special happens in the lonely evocative landscape of Iowa - a farmhouse on the plains in the center of our country in 1965 on the brink of change and somehow the bridges - stark and beautiful - lead us into this world."
MTI also licenses Brown's musicals Parade, The Last Five Years, Songs for a New World and 13.
For further information on licensing, phone (212) 541-4684 or email [email protected].
Visit MTIShows.com.
