VIDEO: A History of THE GREAT GATSBY on Page, Stage & Screen

As BroadwayWorld reported last week, a new musical stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's legendary novel The Great Gatsby is headed for the stage, with a new score from Grammy Award-nominated international rock star of Florence + the Machine Florence Welch and Grammy Award nominee Thomas Bartlett.

Composer and lyricist Florence Welch said, "This book has haunted me for a large part of my life. It contains some of my favourite lines in literature. Musicals were my first love, and I feel a deep connection to Fitzgerald's broken romanticism. It is an honour to have been offered the chance to recreate this book in song."

Welch is far from the first to be inspired by Fitzgerald's classic novel. The Great Gatsby has a long history on page, stage and screen.

---

The Book

The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be one of the most popular and culturally significant books of all time. Published in 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald's iconic novel set in the Jazz Age is the ultimate depiction of the American dream.

The Plays

The classic was first adapted by Owen Davis, who brought the play to Broadway in 1926. After 112 performances, it launched a successful national tour. In 2006, a stage adaptation by Simon Levy premiered at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater. In 2010, Elevator Repair Service brought a new version, titled Gatz, off-Broadway. This version was a six-hour enactment of the full novel.

The Films

The first movie version of the novel debuted in 1926. A adaptation of Davis's play, it was directed by Herbert Brenon and starred Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson and William Powell. Other film versions were made in 1949 (starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field and Macdonald Carey) and in 1974 (starring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, and Sam Waterston). Most recently, it was adapted by Baz Luhrmann in 2013 and starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire.

Television movies have also been made over the years- most notably in 1955 (starring Robert Montgomery, Phyllis Kirk, and Lee Bowman), in 1958 (starring Robert Ryan, Jeanne Crain and Rod Taylor) and in 2000 (starring Toby Stephens, Mira Sorvino, and Paul Rudd).

The Opera

The New York Metropolitan Opera commissioned John Harbison to compose an operatic treatment of the novel to commemorate the 25th anniversary of conductor James Levine's debut. The work, called The Great Gatsby, premiered in 1999.

The Ballet

In 2009, BalletMet premiered a version at the Capitol Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. In 2010, The Washington Ballet premiered a version at the Kennedy Center. The show received an encore run the following year.

The Musical

The timeline for a pre-Broadway engagement will be announced shortly.