Theater News

Second Stage to Present William Finn and James Lapine’s Musical Little Miss Sunshine Off-Broadway in October

The work, based on the Academy Award-nominated film of the same title, will open the off-Broadway company’s upcoming season.

New York City
A scene from the La Jolla Playhouse production of <i>Little Miss Sunshine</i>.
A scene from the La Jolla Playhouse production of Little Miss Sunshine.
(© Craig Schwartz)

William Finn and James Lapine’s musical adaptation of the Academy Award-nominated film Little Miss Sunshine will open Second Stage Theater‘s upcoming off-Broadway season, The New York Times reports. The production, which Lapine will direct, is scheduled to begin performances October 15.

Little Miss Sunshine, which premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2011, tells the story of the down-on-their-luck Hoover family, who travels in a Volkswagen bus to a children’s beauty pageant so that youngest daughter Olive can participate. The 2006 film version, which starred Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin, received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and won two awards, for Arkin’s performance as the crass grandfather and for Michael Arndt’s screenplay.

No casting for the off-Broadway production, which is significantly revised from the original San Diego staging, has been announced. Hunter Foster and Jennifer Laura Thompson led the cast in La Jolla, along with Malcolm Gets, Georgi James, Taylor Trensch, and Dick Latessa. Sherie René Scott, Christian Borle, and John Larroquette starred in a recent developmental reading of the work.

Finn and Lapine have previously collaborated on the acclaimed musicals Falsettos and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which Second Stage premiered in 2005 before moving to Broadway later that year.