A Minister's Wife, Musical Retelling of Candida, Tapped for LCT's Mitzi Newhouse Theater

Lincoln Center Theater will produced the New York premiere of A Minister’s Wife, a new musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Candida, next season at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre. The show will begin performances on April 7, 2011, and open off-Broadway on May 5, conceived and directed by Michael Halberstam.

A Minister’s Wife features a book by Austin Pendleton, music by Joshua Schmidt and lyrics by Jan Tranen. The show explores the fires burning beneath the surface of a seemingly ordinary marriage. The Reverend James Morrell and his wife, Candida, are happily married—or think they are—until a romantic young poet enters their life, turning their world upside down.

The show had its world premiere in May 2009 at Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois, where Halberstam is artistic director. The script is based on an 1898 version of the play, which was revised by Shaw in 1930.

LCT’s first Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater production for the 2010-2011 season will be announced at a later date. Already announced for the coming season are the new musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (beginning October 2 at the Belasco Theatre), John Guare’s A Free Man of Color (beginning October 21 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater) and War Horse (beginning March 17, 2011, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater).