Once On This Island: Disney+ Adapting Broadway Musical into Film

Once On This Island: Disney+ adapting Broadway musical into film

Following the immense success of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, BlackFilmAndTV brings word Disney+ has acquired the rights to another popular Broadway musical, Once On This Island. However, unlike Hamilton‘s debut, the streamer is planning to go with a more traditional live-action film adaptation, instead of a live recording stage performance of Lynn Ahren’s one-act musical.

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Based on the 1985 novel by author Rosa Guy titled “My Love, My Love: or The Peasant Girl”, Once On This Island is a one-act musical featuring the book and lyrics by Tony winner Lynn Ahrens and the music by Grammy winner Stephen Flaherty. Set in the French Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, the musical follows the story of a peasant girl named Ti Moune as she falls in love with Daniel Beauxhomme, a young grande homme who lives on the wealthy other side of the island. Against this backdrop, social class differences play out while the island gods including Asaka, Agwe, Erzulie, and Papa Ge wager a bet on Ti Moune’s life as they try to find out what is stronger: love or death.

Pick up a copy of the novel here!

The film adaptation will be directed by Kenya filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu (Rafiki) from a screenplay that will be written by playwright Jocelyn Bioh. It will be produced by Marc Platt (Legally Blonde, La La Land).

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The original Broadway production of Once On This Island had only ran for a year from 1990-1991 which had earned eight Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Original Score. A London production was also produced in 1995 where it was awarded a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. In 2017, 26 years later since the original had concluded its production, the Broadway musical was revived by Michael Arden and Camille A. Brown which featured Hailey Kilgore, Alex Newell, Merle Dandridge, Quentin Earl Darrington and Lea Salonga.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

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