She's Jill Paice of Curtains fame and London’s last musical Scarlett O’Hara.

According to Yeston, she will play the heroine, Grazia, who falls under the spell of Death — but in a good way. In his musicalization of Alberto Casella’s famous old romantic play, Death assumes human guise, loses his heart to Grazia and has a three-day fling during which time there are no reported fatalities on the planet.

“We’re hoping to do Death Takes a Holiday with Roundabout within nine months,” Yeston relayed cautiously, “but the way conditions are these days on Broadway, you never know when they can put it together. Doug Hughes will be directing. We’ve just been having wonderful readings and a great time doing it."

The Roundabout has made no official announcement about the project.

“The book is by Tom Meehan. It’s interesting, I started out with Peter Stone — and, of course, we lost dear Peter — and Tom Meehan decided to come sit in his chair. I couldn’t be luckier. Between the two of them, I think they wrote 111 best musicals.”

Death Takes a Holiday has been filmed three times — first and most famously in 1934, with Maxwell Anderson and Gladys Lehman adapting and Fredric March and Evelyn Venable starring. In the same-named TV-movie of 1971, Monte Markham was Death houseguesting with a rich clan that had distinct Kennedy overtones. Most recently (1998), Death was Brad Pitt hovering over the wealthy in “Meet Joe Black.”

— Harry Haun