Prince's Purple Rain to Get Stage Musical Adaptation

Purple Rain, the 1984 film based on the work of pop legend Prince, is set to be adapted into a stage musical. Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins will adapt the film's original screenplay (from Albert Magnoli and William Blinn), and it will be directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz and producer Orin Wolf, according to the official announcement at Playbill. The site notes that while there is a website currently active for the play (which suggests producers are hoping for a Broadway debut), there's no other real information. No timetable for the development is known yet, and nobody has been cast.

Jacobs-Jenkins previously collaborated with Blain-Cruz on a 2022 Broadway revival of The Skin of Our Teeth. Purple Rain will be his highest-profile project to date; he currently has Appropriate running on Broadway.

"It's been almost 40 years since Prince's legendary film, Purple Rain, took the world by storm and we can't think of a more fitting tribute than to honor Prince and the Purple Rain legacy with this stage adaptation of the beloved story," NorthStar Group Chairman L Londell McMillan and Primary Wave Music Founder and CEO Larry Mestel told Playbill in a joint statement. "We are thrilled with our Broadway partners and creative team, who are bringing a theatricality to the film's original fictional story. We can't wait for a new generation to discover Purple Rain and for lovers of the original film and album to experience its power once again, this time live."

During his lifetime, Prince was very controlling of his image. He hired Kevin Smith to make a documentary about him, and then never released it; he famously refused to allow "Weird Al" Yankovic to parody his songs; he didn't want his music to be released on digital platforms.

Purple Rain is a fictionalized version of Prince's early life. Per its official synopsis, "A victim of his own anger, the Kid (Prince) is a Minneapolis musician on the rise with his band, the Revolution, escaping a tumultuous home life through music. While trying to avoid making the same mistakes as his truculent father (Clarence Williams III), the Kid navigates the club scene and a rocky relationship with a captivating singer, Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero). But another musician, Morris (Morris Day), looks to steal the Kid's spotlight -- and his girl."