Purple Rain musical based on the Prince album and movie to get stage adaptation

A new stage adaptation of Prince’s Purple Rain is set to get its world premiere on Broadway in the coming months.

The show is to be based on the original Purple Rain movie screenplay by Albert Magnoli and William Blinn, and will have a book by two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, The Comeuppance).

Music and lyrics will be by Prince, and the musical will be directed by Tony Award-nominee Lileana Blain-Cruz (White Girl in Danger, The Skin of our Teeth).

The producer is Orin Wolf, and Broadway venue and dates are to be confirmed.

Prince (Prince Rogers Nelson) was a singer, songwriter, musician, and music producer who sold over 150 million records worldwide, ranking him among the best-selling music artists of all time.

Prince died in 2016. During his career he received seven Grammy Awards, seven Brit Awards, six American Music Awards, four MTV Video Awards, and Academy Award for Best Original Score for Purple Rain, and a Golden Globe Award. Two of his albums, Purple Rain (1984) and Sign o’ the Times (1987), received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year.

Purple Rain tells the fictional story of The Kid, an up-and-coming rock musician in the Minneapolis club scene, as he contends with a tumultuous home environment, a rival band, and a budding romance.

Released in July 1984 by Warner Bros, the film was originated by Prince as his film debut, directed by Albert Magnoli and written by Magnoli and William Blinn.

The movie grossed nearly $100 million worldwide and won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

The NorthStar Group chairman L Londell McMillan, a producer of the show and custodian of the Prince estate, and Founder & CEO of Primary Wave Music Larry Mestel, the publisher of Prince’s music, said in a joint statement: “It’s been almost 40 years since Prince’s legendary film, Purple Rain, took the world by storm and we can’t think of a more fitting tribute than to honor Prince and the Purple Rain legacy with this stage adaptation of the beloved story. We are thrilled with our Broadway partners and creative team, who are bringing a theatricality to the film’s original fictional story. We can’t wait for a new generation to discover Purple Rain and for lovers of the original film and album to experience its power once again, this time live.”

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Main photo: Purple Rain musical - logo