Hal Prince Lines Up 2 New Tuners - LoveMusik, and Paradise Lost

Variety reports that Harold Prince has lined up two new tuners to work on, LoveMusik, followed by Paradise Lost. LoveMusik, with book by Alfred Uhry (a previous Prince collaborator on Parade) will feature the music of Kurt Weill, while detailing the relationship between Weill and wife Lotte Lenya. The show, for which casting is said to be complete is aiming for a 2006 out of town tryout prior to New York.

Also on the slate is Paradise Lost, with book by Richard Nelson, lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh and music by Johann Strauss II and Jonathan Tunick. That show seems to be in earlier stages, with a potential London bow considered.

Harold Prince directed the premiere productions of She Loves Me, Cabaret, Company, Follies, Candide, Pacific Overtures, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Evita, The Phantom Of The Opera and Parade. Among the plays he has directed are Hollywood Arms, The Visit, The Great God Brown, End Of The World, Play Memory and his own play, Grandchild Of Kings. Last season Mr. Prince directed Bounce, the new Sondheim/Weidman musical at Washington's Kennedy Center and Chicago's Goodman. Currently he is preparing a new version of The Phantom of the Opera to open in Las Vegas in 2006 at The Venetian Hotel. His opera productions have been seen at Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Vienna Staatsoper and the Theater Colon in Buenos Aires.

Before becoming a director, Mr. Prince's productions included The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, West Side Story, Fiddler On The Roof, Fiorello!, and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. He served as a trustee for the New York Public Library and on the National Council of the Arts of the NEA. Recipient of a National Medal of Arts for the year 2000 from President Clinton for a career spanning more than 40 years, in which "he changed the nature of the American musical." The recipient of twenty Tony Awards, he was a 1994 Kennedy Center Honoree.