Rebecca, featuring book and lyrics by Michael Kunze and music by Sylvester Levay, had its world premiere in 2006 at Vereinigte Buhnen Wien in Vienna, where it has played to more than 400,000 people. Francesca Zambello (The Little Mermaid, Little House on the Prairie) will direct. Hampton, who has won Tonys for his work on Sunset Boulevard (for book and lyrics) and nominations for his plays Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Philanthropist, will write the English-language adaptation of the libretto, as well as the English lyrics, along with original book-writer and lyricist Kunze.

The musical is being produced by Ben Sprecher (Little House on the Prairie) and Louise Forlenza and is aiming for a Toronto premiere prior to Broadway and the West End. No official North American premiere has been announced.

"Rebecca," which was also a 1940 Academy Award-winning film by Alfred Hitchcock, is a suspense novel by British writer du Maurier that begins with the famous line, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

The story's (unnamed) narrator tells of her marriage to Maxim de Winter and their life at the West Country estate of Manderley, where the memory of de Winter's dead first wife, Rebecca, casts a shadow on the estate.