Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Julie Taymor's Green Bird is now expected on Broadway by mid-April next year. "They're thinking it will open on Broadway a little later, perhaps by mid-April," the production source told Playbill On-Line.

Green Bird, which is performed with puppets and half-masks, was written by Italian playwright, Carlo Gozzi in the 18th century. The play follows a pair of orphaned twins, Renzo and Barbarina, who stumble upon fantastical characters like the singing apples and the dancing water while pursuing the mystical "green bird."

Playbill On-Line has learned that while no theatre has been named, Taymor expects some of the cast in the upcoming production may be familiar to theatre patrons.

"She's hoping to get together some of the cast from the earlier production," the source said.

Taymor's Green Bird debuted to critical acclaim at Off-Broadway's New Victory Theatre in spring 1996. That production played just 15 performances and garnered Derek Smith an OBIE award for acting. Also featured in that production of Green Bird were cast members Trellis Stepter, Andrew Weems, Didi Conn, Ned Eisenberg, Myriam Cyr, Sebastian Roche, Bruce Turk, Kristine Nielsen, Priscilla Shanks, Lee Lewis and Erico Villanueva. As reported earlier by Playbill On-Line, Taymor has described Bird as "thoroughly entertaining, but also having a wonderful grotesquery and poetry to it -- an edgy bawdiness.''

Taymor's frequent collaborator, composer Elliot Goldenthal once said, "it's not a full-blown musical.''

Goldenthal later added that not only will the show "feature a lot of underscoring music -- sort of like carnival music on crack,'' but also "the kind that butts up against sophisticated and delicate sounds.''

This production of Green Bird will be Taymor's third on Broadway, aside from Lion King, her breakthrough collaboration with Goldenthal, and Juan Darien which was produced in New York before eventually opening at Lincoln Center Theater. Taymor continues work on a film-adaptation of her earlier production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.