Game of Thrones star to tackle Breakfast at Tiffany's onstage
Emilia Clarke steps into Holly Golightly role, played on film by Audrey Hepburn
There's a fresh push to get Holly Golightly onto a Broadway stage.
Producers said Wednesday that a new adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's is aiming for a Shubert theatre in New York City in February 2013. The world premiere will be directed by Sean Mathias.
The stage adaption of Truman Capote's classic 1958 novella will star Emilia Clarke of HBO's Game of Thrones as the eccentric party girl Golightly, a role Audrey Hepburn played to acclaim in the 1961 movie.
Pulitzer Prize-finalist and Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg will pen the book. His other plays include Take Me Out and Three Days of Rain.
Return to novella
The movie tidied and glossed over the deeply tragic undercurrent of Capote's story: an aimless bachelorette who uses sugar daddies as her income and a crutch to avoid the pain of her past.
"The goal of this version is to return to the original setting of the novella, which is the New York of the Second World War, as well as to resume its tone — still stylish and romantic, yes, but rougher-edged and more candid than people generally remember," Greenberg said in a statement.
A stage version was first attempted in 1966 but was shuttered after just four previews. That version had a book adapted by Edward Albee and songs by Bob Merrill.
Clarke, who is currently filming the third season of Game of Thrones as the character Daenerys Targaryen, is also slated to star opposite Jude Law in the film Dom Hemingway.
Hepburn's turn in the film version turned the actress into an icon and role model for young women who fantasized about moving to New York to live the same freewheeling, urbane lifestyle.
The new adaptation is being produced on Broadway by Colin Ingram Productions Limited, Donovan Mannato and Dominic Ianno. The creative team will also include three-time Academy Award-winner Colleen Atwood's costumes and Tony-winner Derek McLane's set design.