In recent years, we've seen a real resurgence of big ol' stage-to-screen movie musicals hitting cinemas and streamers. West Side Story, Wicked, In The Heights, Tick, Tick... BOOM!, err... *cough* Dear Evan Hansen and Cats *cough* — you name it, some big wig in Tinseltown's already figuring out how to turn it into a blockbuster smash. Somewhat rarer however is the (non-Disney) movie musical that gets the screen-to-stage treatment. But now, having made a splash Off-Broadway back in 2019 before the pandemic halted its run, Sing Street: A New Musical — an all-singing, all-dancing stage adaptation of John Carney's beloved, music-driven 2016 movie — is heading for the West End.
As reported by What's On Stage, the Sing Street musical — which follows the coming-of-age movie's story of a 16-year-old Dubliner trying to start a band in the 1980s — will make its London debut at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre next summer, running from 8 July to 23 August 2025. Boasting music and lyrics co-written by Carney alongside his movie collaborator Gary Clark, a book from Irish playwright Enda Walsh, and choreography by Sonya Tayeh, Sing Street: A New Musical is set to be mounted by the original show's director Rebecca Taichman. What's more, the show features original songs written specifically for the stage, and the new production will be just that, a new production, rather than a retooling of the musical as it was previously seen in New York and Boston.
Having already seen his 2007 romance Once successfully make the transition from Oscar-winning movie to Tony- and Grammy-award winning West End and Broadway show, it would be fair to say that Carney has some skin in the musical theatre game — despite the way his movies themselves are perhaps best defined by their refusal to be drawn into trotting out musical tropes. We'll find out for ourselves whether Sing Street: A New Musical hits all the right notes of the movie — or if it's a load of cobble(r)s — when Conor and his band tune up on the West End stage next July.