Joe Wright Recalls ‘Weeping’ While Watching ‘Cyrano’ Stage Musical Before His Film Adaptation
variety.comMichael Appler On Wednesday evening in New York City, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer offered its return to the original movie musical with “Cyrano,” director Joe Wright’s musical adaptation of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” starring Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett.At the New York City premiere, held at the SVA Theater, cast and studio executives reflected on the film’s unusual journey from an off-Broadway musical to a $30 million MGM feature film.“The whole reason I set out to do this project was because I really, really wanted to be on Broadway,” Bennett, who plays the leading role of Roxanne, told Variety at the premiere. “We started out in this tiny room six or seven years ago, and in my imagination, we might have ended up on a Broadway stage together.
But, almost unbelievably, here we are at a movie premiere.” In truth, “Cyrano,” composed by rock group the National, had checked all the boxes for an eventual Broadway run: In small rooms around New York City, the National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner, playwright Erica Schmidt and her husband Dinklage tinkered with the adaptation.
They held workshops and found Bennett to read as Roxanne. In 2018, they mounted a small original production out of town with the Connecticut non-profit Goodspeed Musicals, starring Dinklage and Bennett.
And, a year later, the production made its off-Broadway debut at the Daryl Roth Theater for an acclaimed New York run (not including Bennett, who had exited to film Ron Howard’s “Hillbilly Elegy”).By then, however, it was too late for Broadway ambitions.
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