Creative Team Steps Aways From ‘Magic Mike’ Musical

The Magic Mike stage musical, which is scheduled to premiere in Boston later this year ahead of a mooted Broadway run, has been stripped of its creative team.

Book writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Riverdale, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey (the team behind Next to Normal) have departed the production due to “creative differences,” prompting the postponement of a private workshop that had been scheduled for this week in New York. 

Director Trip Cullman and choreographer Camille A. Brown, who collaborated this season on the Tony-nominated Broadway production of Choir Boy, remain attached. A spokesperson for the production confirmed that a new writer-composer team will be announced soon.

The musical is based on the 2012 Steven Soderbergh movie and its 2015 sequel directed by Gregory Jacobs, Magic Mike XXL, which drew inspiration from the pre-Hollywood experience of star Channing Tatum as a stripper in Florida.

According to previous reports, the show will be set before the events of the first film, centering on college student Mike Lane, who becomes a dancer at an exclusive nightclub to make ends meet. 

Tickets for the Boston tryout, which is scheduled to begin previews Nov. 30 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre ahead of a Dec. 15 official opening and to run through Jan. 5, remain on sale according to the venue. No dates for the planned Broadway engagement have been announced.

Given the challenges of pulling together an entirely new book musical in such a short time, pundits are speculating that the producing team could end up staging a non-narrative revue in Boston along the lines of Magic Mike Live, which has played Las Vegas and London. Should that happen, talk of Broadway seems likely to be dropped.

Tatum, Soderbergh and Jacobs are billed as producers on the musical, along with Nick Wechsler, Reid Carolin and Peter Kiernan.

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