The Last Goodbye, a New Musical Fusing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet With Songs of Jeff Buckley, Will Open Old Globe Season
The production, conceived and adapted by Michael Kimmel, will be directed by Alex Timbers.
(© David Gordon)
Conceived and adapted by Michael Kimmel, The Last Goodbye fuses the original text and period of Shakespeare's romantic tragedy with the late Buckley's thrilling rock songs. It is directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatcher), with choreography by So You Think You Can Dance's Sonya Tayeh, and musical direction, orchestrations, and arrangements by Kris Kukul.
Casting and additional information about the production will be announced in the future. An earlier version of The Last Goodbye had its world premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2010, where it broke box office records for the festival's Nikos Stage. This new version, produced by special arrangement with Hal Luftig, Ruth and Steve Hendel, The Marks-Moore-Turnbull Group, and Executive Producer Lauren Fitzgerald, reflects two years of developmental workshops under Timbers' guidance.
Buckley's first-and-only full-length, full-band studio album, Grace, was released in 1994. An artist emerging from New York City's avant-garde club scene, he is best known for his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," which is featured on Grace and will be included in this production. Born in California in 1966, he died in Memphis in 1997.