March 28, 2014
PlaybillMarch 28, 2014
By Robert Viagas
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The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, a musical based on the Mordecai Richtler film and novel, is getting a full production at the Segal Centre in Montreal, where the story is set. Performances are scheduled for June 7-28, 2015.
The musical has an original score by Alan Menken, the Tony- and Oscar-winning composer of Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and other Disney musicals. He's currently represented on Broadway by Newsies and Aladdin, both also adapted to the stage from his Disney films.
Menken wrote the score for Duddy between Little Shop of Horrors and Little Mermaid.
Lyrics are by David Spencer, who has also written a new libretto. Spencer and Menken collaborated on the Off-Broadway musical Weird Romance.
In its original form the Broadway-bound Duddy closed in Philadelphia after a 1987 tryout in Philadelphia.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is a morality story about a ruthless young man who sets out to buy a tract of Canadian woods after being told by his grandfather that “a man without land is nobody.” He steps on anybody who gets in his way, including people who love him, before he realizes what his quest has cost him.
The Segal Center had initially announced a production of a Yiddish adaptation of the same story for the current season. The musical is not related to that production.