Brokeback Mountain is becoming a new West End musical starring Lucas Hedges and Mike Faist
Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges will star in a stage adaptation of Brokeback Mountain. (River Road Entertainment, Mark Seliger / Feast Creative)
Brokeback Mountain is being adapted into a stage play starring the BAFTA-nominated actor Mike Faist and Oscar-nominated Lucas Hedges.
Adapted from Annie Proulx’s bestselling 1997 short story of the same name, which was famously turned into an Oscar-winning 2005 film starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, the upcoming play will make its stage debut at the new London theatre, @sohoplace, in May.
In a press release today (20 March), it was announced that West Side Story star Faist and Lady Bird star Lucas Hedges will play sheep herders Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar.
Directed by Jonathan Butterell, the new production of Brokeback Mountain is described as a play with music, which will be written by Dan Gillespie Sells, co-creator of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Ashley Robinson, who wrote the script, said he was “honoured” to have the chance to “bring new life to Proulx’s “timeless and universal” story.
Sells’ music, Robinson continued, gives “voice to the tumultuous inner landscape of our wannabe cowboys (both young men of few words), and provide the scope of our vast and brutal outer landscape, not to mention allowing Proulx’s poetic prose to literally sing.”
Mike Faist received a BAFTA nomination for his role as Jets leader Riff in West Side Story opposite Ariana DeBose. He was also nominated for a Tony Award for his role in the musical Dear Evan Hansen.
Lucas Hedges received his Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 2017 for Manchester By The Sea.
Brokeback Mountain‘s stage production will be different to Ang Lee‘s film adaptation of Proulx’s seminal work, which was first published in The New Yorker.
“Brokeback Mountain has been recreated in several different forms, each with its own distinctive moods and impact,” said Proulx in a statement.
“Ashley’s script is fresh and deeply moving, opening sight lines not visible in the original nor successive treatments.”
Brokeback Mountain opens at @sohoplace in London’s West End on Wednesday 10 May and will run until Sunday 20 August.
Tickets for the show are priced from £35.40 and are now available to buy from Ticketmaster.
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