Skip to footer

'Water for Elephants' could be adapted as a Broadway musical

'Water for Elephants' is by Sara Gruen and follows a veterinarian-in-training who joins the circus and falls in love.

'Water for Elephants' is by Sara Gruen.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Sara Gruen’s bestseller “Water for Elephants” could become a musical. 

According to the Hollywood Reporter, “The Lion King” producer Peter Schneider and "The Old Woman" Elisabetta di Mambro have obtained the rights to the novel. Gruen’s book is set in the 1930s and follows a young veterinarian-in-training who joins the circus and falls in love with a married member of the company even as she also befriends a trained elephant. 

Schneider also produced the stage musical “Sister Act.”

“I have loved Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants since it was first published and was captivated by its theatricality,” Schneider said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Gruen said in a statement that she is “beyond thrilled to be involved in a creative process that is entirely new to me, especially with such wonderfully talented people at the helm to reimagine my work for the stage.” 

According to THR, the show is expected to premiere on Broadway. 

Perhaps the creative team is hoping to recapture the success of another circus-based show. When the musical “Pippin” returned to Broadway in 2013, the show took place in a circus atmosphere. “Pippin” won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. 

“Elephants” was previously the basis for a 2011 movie that starred Robert Pattinson as veterinarian Jacob Jankowski, Reese Witherspoon as performer Marlena, and Christoph Waltz as her husband August. Monitor film critic Peter Rainer gave the film a B, writing that “the Depression that we see is a bit too gussied up and commemorative … [but] Pattinson seems at home here … [and] Waltz … confirms the gift for preening nastiness that had its fullest flower in ‘Inglourious Basterds.’ "

Rainer added, however, that "The best film’s best performance ... comes from Rosie the elephant.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Water for Elephants' could be adapted as a Broadway musical
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2015/0128/Water-for-Elephants-could-be-adapted-as-a-Broadway-musical
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe