A Tony-winning director is set to make her feature directorial debut. Rachel Chavkin, who snagged last year’s Tony for Best Direction of a Musical for “Hadestown,” is locked in to helm “Shrew’s Nest” for Paramount. Deadline broke the news.
A remake of the 2014 Spanish movie “Musarañas,” the psychological thriller is set in Spain during the 1950s. The pic “follows an agoraphobic woman who raises her younger sister in an apartment locked away from the world. But one day, a reckless young neighbor, Carlos, falls down the stairwell and drags himself to their door. Someone has entered the shrew’s nest, and it doesn’t look like he’s leaving,” the source hints.
“Shrew’s Nest” is being compared to “Misery” and “Black Swan.” “Misery” tells the story of a famous author who is saved from a car crash by an unstable fan, and the latter is a portrait of a ballerina on the brink of a breakdown.
“I wish I wasn’t the only woman directing a musical on Broadway this season. There are so many women and artists of color ready to go,” said Chavkin while accepting her Tony for directing “Hadestown.” “It’s a failure of imagination by a field whose job it is to imagine how the world could be.”
“Hadestown” intertwines the myths of Orpheus and Eurydice with King Hades and Persephone. The musical took home eight Tonys. Prior to her directing win for “Hadestown,” Chavkin received a 2017 Tony nod for Best Direction of a Musical for “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.” She’ll return to Broadway with “Lempicka,” the story of artist Tamara de Lempicka, who survived the Russian Revolution and Nazi-occupied Paris. The musical will have a run at California’s La Jolla Playhouse this spring before opening on the Great White Way next season.