Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings is headed to the stage as a musical, Deadline reports.
Wolitzer’s novel, published in 2013 by Riverhead, follows a group of adult friends who befriended one another decades earlier at an arts-themed summer camp in upstate New York. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the novel as “ambitious and involving, capturing the zeitgeist of the liberal intelligentsia of the era.”
The musical’s book will be written by Sarah Ruhl, whose plays have included Eurydice and In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play). The lyrics and music will be composed by Sara Bareilles, the singer-songwriter responsible for the songs from the musical Waitress.
This will be the second adaptation of The Interestings. A pilot episode of a television series based on the novel aired on Amazon in 2016, but the company decided not to move forward with the show.
Wolitzer shared the news of the planned musical on Instagram, writing, “When I was a kid at an arty summer camp, fresh out of an improv class, I looked around and muttered under my breath, ‘Someday, young Meg, this place is going to be material…’ I could not be more honored or excited to have my novel adapted as a musical by these brilliant artists.
Bareilles also announced the musical on Instagram, writing, “I wrote the first song before I finished the book. I love these characters so much and I can’t wait to share this world with a new audience.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
