According to a story in Variety, film director Roman Polanski is set to direct a stage musical adaptation of the Anne Rice novel, Interview With The Vampire. Retitled Dance Of The Vampire, the musical is scheduled to open in Vienna at the Raimund Theatre in October.
Polanski will work with American composer Jim Steinman and Austrian lyricist Michael Kunze on the piece. Steinman, who started with the rock group "Blondie," wrote the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down the Wind. Kunze penned the libretto for the long-running Viennese musical, Elisabeth. Polanski's last stage venture was the Paris production of Master Class.
Auditions for an international cast will be conducted in February and March, said Rudi Klausnitzer, director of the Theater an der Wien. Once the production is in place, he'll think about stagings in London and New York.
Polanski makes an oddly appropriate choice for the vehicle, since he directed and starred in the 1967 spoof, The Fearless Vampire Killers, whose original title was "Dance Of The Vampires." In 1994, Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire was turned into a feature film starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Christian Slater.
--By David Lefkowitz