Heads up, Gen-Xers and millennials: The Baby-Sitters Club is headed to the stage.
Ann M. Martin’s series of children’s books is being adapted as a stage musical, with Mark Sonnenblick, Kate Wetherhead, and Annie Tippe attached, Deadline reports.
Martin’s series, about a group of middle-school babysitting friends in the fictional town of Stoneybrook, Connecticut, launched in 1986 with Kristy's Great Idea. More than 200 books in the series followed, and several spin-off series were launched, most recently a line of graphic novels by authors including Raina Telgemeier, Gale Galligan, Chan Chau, and Arley Nopra.
The books have been previously adapted into two television series, one which aired from 1990 to 1993, and one that ran from 2020 to 2021. A film adaptation, directed by Melanie Mayron and starring Schuyler Fisk and Rachael Leigh Cook, was released in 1995.
The stage musical adaptation is being developed by TWTheatricals. Sonnenblick, who wrote songs for the popular animated film KPop Demon Hunters, will write the music and lyrics for the show with Wetherhead (The Devil Wears Prada) writing the book. The play will be directed and choreographed by Tippe (Ghost Quartet).
“Though their triumphs and struggles and crushes are evergreen, these are girls of the ’80s and ’90s,” Sonnenblick told Deadline. “So the score’s inspired by some of our favorites—Sheryl Crow, Indigo Girls, Shania Twain. We’re just very excited for everyone to hang out with the club in Stoneybrook, whether it’s your first time or your five hundredth.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
