North America tour of An Officer and a Gentleman to begin autumn 2020

Work Light Productions, in association with Jamie Wilson and Curve, announced that the musical stage production of AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, based on the 1982 Oscar-winning film starring Richard Gere, begins touring North America with a premiere in the autumn of 2020. Featuring the Grammy Award winning, #1 hit single ‘Up Where We Belong’, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN is an uplifting production that celebrates triumph over adversity and includes one of the most iconic and romantic endings ever portrayed on screen.

“The lift, the officer’s hat, the song…sometimes one moment embeds itself in the cultural memory of a generation. That’s where live theater really shines, in its ability to create a world that earns that big moment”, says producer Stephen Gabriel of Work Light Productions.

Based on the original screenplay by Douglas Day Stewart, the book for the musical is a new adaptation by multiple Tony Award nominee Dick Scanlan (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Everyday Rapture), based on an original book by Douglas Day Stewart and Sharleen Cooper Cohen. The musical is directed by Dick Scanlan with choreography by Patricia Wilcox (Motown, A Night with Janis Joplin). Dan Lipton (The Band’s Visit, The Last Ship) serves as the music supervisor/arranger and George Dyer provides orchestrations and arrangements for the production which features a score based on the 1980’s catalogue of music that gave voice to a generation.

“Like all good stories, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN is set in a specific world with its own culture, customs and costumes—the U.S. Navy,” says book writer and director Dick Scanlan. “And like all great stories, its themes are universal: love, valor and the ways in which our reasons for pursuing a dream determine whether or not we’ll achieve it.”

Zack Mayo’s got smarts and a body built for US Navy pilot boot camp, but he also has too much swagger… until he meets a drill sergeant who’s determined to drill his arrogance out of him. Zack finds comfort in the arms of a local factory girl. But it isn’t until tragedy befalls a fellow candidate that Zack learns the importance of love and friendship, and finds the courage to be his best self and win the heart of the woman he loves. A sweeping romance that will lift you up where you belong.

Douglas Day Stewart wrote his Oscar-nominated screenplay for “An Officer and a Gentleman” based on his own experiences going through the rigors of Naval Officer Candidate School – while dating a local factory girl. Stewart said of the piece, “The old way they told the story of officers in the military, it was always an upper middle-class experience. But in the ‘new’ Navy, working class men and women of all backgrounds were applying to the officer corps to better their lives.”

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN is produced by Work Light Productions in association with Jamie Wilson, Curve, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. The North American tour of AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN is being booked and marketed by Bond Theatrical Group.

For more information, visit www.OfficerAndAGentlemanMusical.com

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