Tony Award-winning librettist Rick Elice has been working on a Broadway musical based on the life of pop star Cher and is scheduled to present it to producers including Hamilton's Jeffrey Seller on April 20, according to a report in The New York Post.
Seller reportedly will co-produce with Flody Suarez, described as “an old-time television producer who persuaded Cher to do the musical in the first place.” Seller's track record includes Rent, Avenue Q and In the Heights.
The show will include her hits Including “I Got You Babe,” “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” “Take Me Home,” “Believe,” “If I Could Turn Back Time.”
Elice told the Post, “They may pack me in a van and have me carted away when they see what I’ve done with her life. Or I’ll start doing what [Gypsy writer] Arthur Laurents always said about musicals, ‘They don’t get written. They get rewritten.’ ”
If the script gets past that gauntlet, it will be presented to Cher herself on May 20.
As previously reported by Playbill.com in 2012, Oscar and Grammy winner Cher herself had tweeted that producers were at work developing the musical. The star stated at the time that the musical would incorporate songs from her career, with three different actresses set to play her at various stages of her life. One actress will play a young Cher through her "Sonny and Cher" years, while another will play the icon through the Believe tour, with a third to inhabit the star at the current point in her life.
The show will incorporate a theatrical conceit that allows all three actresses to talk to one another and perform together.
Cher also revealed that she is part of the writing process on the musical, which has been in development for "quite a while." Broadway is the goal.
While Cher didn't explicitly state that she intended to be a part of it, she did tease via twitter, “I could b old Cher!”
Cher appeared on Broadway in the short-lived production of Ed Graczyk's Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, a role she later repeated on film. She earned the Academy Award for her performance in "Moonstruck." Most recently, she co-starred with Christina Aguilera in the film musical "Burlesque." She has earned Grammy Awards for her lengthy recording career, and her additional screen credits include "Mask," "Silkwood" (Golden Globe Award), "Moonstruck" (Academy Award/Golden Globe), "The Witches of Eastwick," "Mermaids" and "Tea with Mussolini."
