The 1985 film Girls Just Want to Have Fun will be adapted into a musical featuring hit 1980s pop music, including the film's titular anthem "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," originally sung by Cyndi Lauper. The producers behind Clue On Stage and Mystic Pizza: The New Musical Lively McCabe Entertainment and Primary Wave Music will develop the work.
M. Dickson (“How I Met Your Father” and “Superstore”) and Lauren Marcus ("Tick, Tick...Boom) will pen the musical's book, which will be set to music from Primary Wave’s expansive catalog of pop hits. Jennifer Werner (The Book of Mormon) will direct.
The stage show is based on the film’s screenplay by Amy Spies and features a score of 1980s chart-toppers. “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” tells the story of Janey, a high school gymnast whose strict Army colonel father instructs her to stay out of the spotlight. But when she moves to a new town and meets the bold and supportive Lynne, she disobeys her dad for the first time to enter a TV dance competition. Although the movie wasn’t a box office hit, it eventually became a cult favorite.
“Primary Wave just wants to have fun, and we could not be more excited for our iconic hits from the '80s to provide the soundtrack for this beloved, classic story,” say the music publishers' team on the project, Natalia Nastaskin and Ramon Villa. “We are grateful to Amy Spies for entrusting us and our amazing partners at Lively McCabe with her culturally important work.”
Spies expresses her excitement for the show's uplifting message to come to life on stage, stating: “I am excited that this great team is bringing to the stage my story of empowering female friendships and young women coming into their own.”
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Follow along with the show on Instagram and TikTok, or read more about the upcoming adaptation on Playbill.com