'King Kong' Musical on Broadway? John Rando ('On the Town') in Talks to Direct

Tony Award-winning director John Rando (Urinetown, On the Town) is in talks to direct the new musical King Kong, which is undergoing revisions after a tryout run in Australia last year.

According to The New York Times, a spokesman for producer Carmen Pavlovic of Global Creatures confirmed that Rando is heading Down Under this week to talk about overhauling the show for Broadway.

The Australian production's spectacle, highlighted by a 20-foot King Kong puppet, was well received, but the score and Craig Lucas's script got poorer reviews. The score combined classic songs from the '20s and '30s with contemporary music from artists such as Massive Attack, Evanescence and Sarah McLachlan. As Vito Mattarelli wrote in Australian Stage, "Technically the show is brilliant, and for some out there, that will be sufficient. Is this musical theatre? Not as we have known it." On the other hand, Jason Blake wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that "when Kong emerges from a snowstorm of video projections…he is everything you hoped he would be."

Pavlovic has hired Marsha Norman (The Bridges of Madison County, The Secret Garden) to write a new book, and parted ways with original director Daniel Kramer.

In addition to directing the current Broadway revival of On the Town, Rando is to helm the world premiere of the new musical The Honeymooners, based on Jackie Gleason's classic CBS television show, at Goodspeed Musicals in September 2015. A workshop presentation of The Honeymooners featuring Michael McGrath, Megan Hilty, Hank Azaria and Leslie Kritzer was scheduled for tomorrow.