Elevator Repair Service Receives Permission from Fitzgerald Estate for New York Run of Gatz

Elevator Repair Service has received permission from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s estate to bring their international hit show, Gatz to New York, according to The New York Times.

The work is conceived as a single six-hour production in which the ensemble brings to life every word of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, no text added and none removed. The piece begins one morning in the low-rent office of a mysterious small business when an employee finds a ragged old copy of the book in the clutter of his desk and starts to read it out loud. And doesn’t stop.

ERS will next perform the piece at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 7-February 7. Scott Shepherd and Jim Fletcher are set to star as the narrator and title character respectively.

The Fitzgerald estate had previously blocked Gatz from New York performances because the performance rights to the novel were held by the producers of Gatsby, adapted from the same source material. According to the Times, the Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, and St. Ann’s Warehouse have all expressed interest in producing Gatz, but no official plans have been confirmed.