The musical, which went up in London's West End in 1978, was adapted from the 1977 BBC-television play by Jack Rosenthal. Styne wrote music, Don Black wrote the lyrics, and Rosenthal wrote the book. The Styne estate has given permission to the new version, which will include never-before-heard Styne tunes that were not necessarily originally intended for Bar Mitzvah Boy. The music director David Loud (Curtains, Steel Pier, Ragtime, A Class Act) is putting together the music.
Black (Bombay Dreams, Sunset Boulevard) will write lyrics to those new tunes and is also revising old lyrics. The book writer David Thompson (Steel Pier, adaptation for the current Chicago) is revising the book. Stafford Arima (Altar Boyz, London's Ragtime, the new musical Ace) is directing the reading.
The musical was never on Broadway, but the American Jewish Theatre produced the musical in 1987 at New York City's 92nd Street Y.
The date of the reading has not been announced. The Paper Mill Playhouse is located in Milburn, NJ. For more information about the theatre, visit www.papermill.org.