Lestat Sinks Teeth into April

Elton's Lestat hitting Broadway in April

from Billboard via Reuters

NEW YORK - Lestat, the first musical Elton John and longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin have written together, will open April 13 on Broadway at the Palace Theater, with preview performances due to begin March 11.

The musical will premiere December 17 at San Francisco's Curran Theater, where it will run through January 29. The title role will be played by Hugh Panero (Phantom of the Opera), while Carolee Carmello and Jack Noseworthy will star as Gabrielle and Armand, respectively.

John recently told Billboard that one Lestat song, "Paris," was one of his most difficult pieces to finish: "It's the longest song I ever took to write - three-and-a-half hours. I thought I was going to go nuts. I thought I was going to have a mental breakdown."

In addition to his touring schedule and his "The Red Piano" engagement in Las Vegas, John is working on a number of projects, highlighted by a new studio album to be released in 2007. For that project, he and Taupin are writing a sequel to Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy called Captain Fantastic and the Kid. The first edition, released in 1975, covered the pair's first 30 years; the second will cover the subsequent 30 years and will come out March 20, 2007, five days before John's 60th birthday.