'Cry-Baby' looking to Broadway debut

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Mar 21, 2004 by Michael Kuchwara Associated Press

NEW YORK -- John Waters' "Cry-Baby" has found the men who will make it sing on Broadway.

The upcoming stage version of the director's movie musical will have a score by Adam Schlesinger, a member of the Grammy-nominated Fountains of Wayne, and David Javerbaum, head writer for Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart."

"These two have the right attitude: They are irreverent, and they are witty, but they are not mean-spirited," Waters said Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press. "They also understand the genre of rockabilly and, at the same time, can take it and turn it into a Broadway musical. You can't just make the show the same as the movie."

Schlesinger will write the music and Javerbaum the lyrics.

"'Cry-Baby' is about class and not about race," Waters, said, referring to "Hairspray," his film that became the current smash Broadway musical. The new musical most likely will open on Broadway in spring 2006, Richard Kornberg, a spokesman for the show, said.

The film version of "Cry-Baby," set in 1950s Baltimore, stars Johnny Depp and Amy Locane, and tells the story of an innocent girl, "who wants to break bad, who wants to run off with a lower-class boy. They are both orphans -- and 'Orphans have special needs,' " said Waters, quoting one of the movie's more memorable lines.

Schlesinger and Javerbaum will work with book writers Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell, who wrote the book for the stage version of "Hairspray."

"I have already seen a treatment, which I like, and it's pretty far along," Waters said.

"We are going to have our first Baltimore meeting, which we always do. That's how we start off: They come to Baltimore and I drive them around the neighborhoods where it all happened and where the show comes from."