Susan Stroman to Shepherd Woody Allen's 'Bullets Over Broadway' to Stage

NEW YORK --  Susan Stroman, the director-choreographer who steered Mel Brooks' The Producers to its record-breaking run, has signed on to fill that dual role on the upcoming stage musical adaptation of Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway.

our editor recommends

Woody Allen's 'Bullets Over Broadway' Targets Broadway

Julian Schlossberg and Letty Aronson will produce the show, being adapted by Allen from the Oscar-nominated screenplay he co-wrote with Douglas McGrath. Aiming to debut on Broadway during the 2013-14 season, the production will feature a score made up of period nuggets from the classic American songbook.

The 1920s-set movie followed the travails of a playwright new to Broadway and forced to accept the compromise of casting a gangster's talentless girlfriend in order to get his work produced. Dianne Wiest won a supporting actress Academy Award as a flamboyant grande dame of the theater angling for her role to be expanded.

Stroman's production of The Producers won 12 Tony Awards in 2001, including direction and choreography. She also won for choreography in 1992 for Crazy for You, in 1995 for Show Boat and in 2000 for Contact. Her 2010 production of John Kander and Fred Ebb's The Scottsboro Boys was a commercial failure on Broadway but nonetheless drew passionate critical support, yielding 12 Tony nominations.

Cast and additional creative team on the Bullets Over Broadway musical have yet to be announced.