“Frozen” co-writer Kristen Anderson-Lopez is taking her talent to Broadway. The writer will make her stage debut with “In Transit,” the Great White Way’s first a capella musical. It was co-written with James-Allen Ford, Russ Kaplan, and Sara Wordsworth, and follows a group of ambitious New Yorkers through the subway.
In a new interview with American Theater, Anderson-Lopez revealed some of the details of the new show, which has surprisingly been in the works since 1999.
“It all started with a group of friends and I who were in an a cappella group together, and a few of the songs that we had written are still in the show,” she said. “It has evolved many times since then as we became older and better storytellers. Between the Off-Broadway and the Broadway version, we have added several components. We added another 4 voices; the Off-Broadway show had 7 voices, and now there are 11.”
The project also includes Deke Sharon, who is behind NBC’s “The Sing-Off” and the “Pitch Perfect” films.
“He sort of created the American a cappella sound and movement almost singlehandedly, and he has done all the arrangements for this 11-part version.,” Anderson-Lopez explained.
They’ve also brought on high-profile Tony-winning Broadway female director Kathleen Marshall.
“[Kathleen] is just an incredible mind for matrices and has got this ability to imagine the 11 components in space and know where they all will be. It really is a complicated show–the cast, the stage. You need to have one of those minds that can keep several things tracking at the exact same time,” Anderson-Lopez added.
This won’t be the only Broadway project for Anderson-Lopez. She’s hard at work for the stage adaptation of “Frozen,” which involved turning the movie’s eight songs into a whopping 23.
“We’re proud of it and I am excited to share it with the world because we got to go much deeper into things, and the relationship with Anna and Kristoff. It was really fun to spend some time writing their chemistry,” she said.
“In Transit” hits Broadway on December 11. The “Frozen” musical is set for the spring of 2018.
