It’s Groundhog Day yet again — as a musical
Atop Broadway actor has won the coveted ‘Bill Murray’ role in a new, musical version of the beloved comedy film Groundhog Day.
the show will star Andy Karl as the grouchy weatherman stuck in his own time warp in the small pennsylvania town of punxsutawney, where he’s gone to cover the quaint local tradition where a bashful rodent ‘predicts’ how long winter will last.
In the 1993 movie, directed by Harold Ramis, sourpuss phil Connors wakes to Sonny and Cher’s I’ve Got You Babe blaring out of the clock radio at the same time, on the same day, day after day after day.
‘What if there is no tomorrow?’ Connors wonders in mounting panic. ‘there wasn’t one today.’
Karl is a big name in New York, having played the title role in the musical Rocky, for which he received a tony nomination. And he was in the musicals Legally Blonde and 9-5 on Broadway.
I saw Legally Blonde; and last year watched him give a hilarious turn in on the twentieth Century, in which he appeared with Kristin Chenoweth.
He won the Groundhog Day lead after auditioning on both sides of the Atlantic. In London, he tried out for Matthew Warchus, who will direct the show at the old Vic ( where he’s artistic director) in July.
And, over in New York, he saw producer Scott Rudin, who will move the show to Broadway in March next year, and Danny Rubin, who has adapted his film screenplay for the stage.
Karl also met and worked extensively with tim Minchin, who created the music and lyrics, and with choreographer peter Darling.
the creative team of Warchus, Minchin and Darling — plus designer Rob Howell, and executive producer Andre ptaszynski — have collaborated before, on the Royal Shakespeare Company musical Matilda, which is still playing in London and New York and has become an acclaimed, moneymaking hit with many overseas productions.
Groundhog Day has had three workshops, but Karl didn’t participate in any of them. Several people, though, have told me that his series of auditions were ‘stunning’.
‘It’s a role that has a big shadow over it, because of Bill Murray. But Karl captured the darkness, bleakness and humour of it,’ someone who witnessed his auditions, told me.
Essentially , Groundhog Day will be ‘trying out’ at the old Vic, where it will run for just ten weeks. But if Warchus and his colleagues can get it right, it could reap long-term rewards in the form of royalties for the London theatre. And if it does work, Karl’s will become a name I won’t have to explain again.
the film didn’t win any oscars, yet it has become one of the most popular romcoms of all- time. Rehearsals will begin in London in early May. the part of the weatherman’s love interest ( Andie MacDowell in the film) and other roles are still being cast.