10 to 4 Productions has announced new dates for the world premiere of Indecent Proposal; the new musical will now run at Southwark Playhouse from 22nd October – 27th November 2021.
After two postponements, the cast and crew are thrilled to get back to creating this ambitious and modern musical inspired by the Jack Engelhard novel (on which the iconic 1993 film was also based).
Atlantic City. 1988: Jonny (Norman Bowman; 42nd Street Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; Eugenius! London Palladium; King Lear Royal Exchange Theatre) and Rebecca (casting to be announced) are very much in love and very much in debt. Jonny’s a struggling singer-songwriter who spends most of his time playing backup for Annie (Jacqui Dankworth; Into the Woods, original London cast, Phoenix Theatre; Les Liaisons Dangereuses, RSC and celebrated Jazz recording artist), a singer at the Oasis Casino Hotel Resort. Rebecca’s working two jobs as they struggle to make ends meet. But they’re happy and that’s enough. Or is it?
When wealthy stranger Larry Harris (Ako Mitchell; The Color Purple Leicester Curve and Birmingham Hippodrome; Caroline, or Change Chichester, Hampstead and West End; Guys and Dolls Manchester Royal Exchange) arrives in town and offers Rebecca a million dollars to spend a night with him, will the lure of money outweigh their promise of fidelity? Will Rebecca accept Larry’s indecent proposal? Will their marriage survive if she doesn’t? Will their marriage survive if she does?
Inspired by the Jack Engelhard book which sparked a world-wide debate and was later adapted into the 1993 hit film, Indecent Proposal is a chamber musical that stays true to book’s setting of Atlantic City in the 1980s whilst reimagining the work through the lens of the current social and political climate, allowing audiences to consider what they would do in a similar situation, whilst they watch this couple grapple with the fallout from a stranger’s proposition.
Directed by Charlotte Westenra, book and lyrics by Michael Conley with music by Dylan Schlosberg – produced by Neil Marcus for 10 to 4 Productions; this musical brings a story to stage that, over 30 years after the book was published, is perhaps all the more painfully relevant today.
Speaking of the piece and its exploration of power, fidelity, gender politics and a woman’s sexual autonomy, director Charlotte Westenra says, ‘I am so excited to share this beautiful, important story that is of its time but also painfully relevant today. Like in the show, people with influence still use it to take more than we’re sometimes willing to give. The fact that it happens all the time doesn’t make it right, even if you agree to give it. We can’t wait for audiences to come and contribute to the conversation and ask themselves what they would do if they were to receive an indecent proposal’.
