Pedro Almodóvar’s film Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown has now become a Broadway musical with tickets on sale today at 10am. Beginning October 2, the press release announces the cast and states:

Now, WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN is a new musical based on the film. LCT’s Resident Director, Bartlett Sher, still happily reeling from his achievement on South Pacific, leads the extraordinary collaborators Jeffrey Lane (book) and David Yazbek (music and lyrics). Lane and Yazbek, the team behind Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, have taken Almodóvar’s tale and infused it with their own wry, comic style and an irresistible Spanish beat. Four celebrated designers will join them — Michael Yeargan (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes), Brian MacDevitt (lighting) and Scott Lehrer (sound).

Both touching and hilarious, it’s a story about women and the men who pursue them… finding them, losing them, needing them, and rejecting them. At the center is Pepa (Sherie Rene Scott) whose friends and lovers are blazing a trail through 1980s Madrid. And why do they all keep showing up at her high-rise apartment? Gazpacho anyone?

Along with Pepa, there’s her missing (possibly philandering) lover, Ivan (Brian Stokes Mitchell); his ex-wife of questionable sanity, Lucia (Patti LuPone); Pepa’s friend, Candela (Laura Benanti), and her terrorist boyfriend; a power-suited lawyer (de’Adre Aziza) plus a taxi driver (Danny Burstein) who dispenses tissues, mints and advice in equal proportion. Mayhem and comic madness abound, balanced by the empathy and heart that are trademarks of Almodóvar’s work. And of Bartlett Sher’s too.

Remaining cast to be announced.

It should come as no surprise that I do adore Almodóvar and the stories and films he produces. He’s normalized many of the experiences that are a part of many of our lives but that we rarely see in cinema. In addition, he’s the type of director that I can see making a book into a film; last time I felt this way was with Chris Abani’s book The Virgin Of Flames.

What I find odd, is that there are no Spanish or Latin@ cast members (yet announced). Now, I can go on and on about how odd I find this, and how even the current cast of In The Heights is no longer representative of the community/characters as they were originally created, when I KNOW there are Spanish and Latin@ actors looking for work.

I’d still like to see the performance (even though I have a bias that almost everything sounds better in Spanish, especially if that was its original language created), because I’ve been loving Patti LuPone since the series “Life Goes On.” Plus, Brian Stokes Mitchell basically has Cat Daddy status in my life. In any event, what songs would you like to hear included in this musical? Are you considering going?

For those of you who have yet to see the film, here’s a trailer:

foto credit: The Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown marquee
photo by Krissie Fullerton via