NEW YORK — The infamous Fyre Festival appears to finally be happening after two disastrous tries — and this time there will actually be music.
Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi and his wife, recording artist Rita Ora, announced on Monday they’re setting their sights on Broadway by producing a musical based on the catastrophic event that landed brainchild Billy McFarland behind bars for fraud.
“Fyre Festival The Musical” is currently in development, with Waititi and Ora joining a team that includes “Rock of Ages” producer Matthew Weaver and Emmy-winning production company Hungryman.
The musical has been described as a comedy about McFarland and the ill-fated 2017 festival that made international headlines and spurred binge-worthy documentaries on Netflix and Hulu.
Co-founded by rapper Ja Rule and heavily promoted on social media by celebrities, Fyre Fest ultimately left its big-spending attendees stranded on an island in the Bahamas after they arrived to find an incomplete site, cold cheese sandwiches and FEMA-style tents for accommodations. Basic provisions never materialized, let alone the gourmet cuisine and VIP villas they were promised.
Amid the chaos — which also included cancellations from artists and influencers such as Migos, Blink-182 and Kendall Jenner — organizers aborted the festival altogether, leaving hundreds of ticketholders without food and shelter, and scrambling to get flights home.
A preliminary description for the forthcoming musical reads: “It’s not just a Greek-sized tragedy of one man’s con. It’s a satirical indictment of an entire generation. ‘Fyre Fest The Musical.’ It’s about as wrong as a bad idea can go.”
Hungryman co-founder Bryan Buckley, an Oscar-nominated writer/director who’s also known as the King of Super Bowl commercials, wrote the script for the musical.
Oscar, Golden Globe and seven-time Grammy winner Paul Epworth created the music, while David Korins, the award-winning scenic designer of “Hamilton,” is attached to design the set.
“I never saw myself doing a theatrical musical comedy,” Buckley said in Monday’s announcement. “But then again, I never saw something completely mind-bendingly ridiculous and intriguing as what went down with Fyre Festival.”
He went on to describe the event as “a spectacular failed endeavor that will haunt a generation forever.”
Of producing the musical, Waititi — who studied theater in his native New Zealand — said: “Honestly, I think the idea is exciting, weird and potentially disastrous, which seems apt and is how I like to work.”
To coincide with the announcement, a rep for the show said a 100-foot barge would be released from Staten Island into New York Harbor and anchored in Brooklyn. There will also be guerilla art installations promoting the production around New York City.
A cast and a premiere date have yet to be confirmed.
Monday’s announcement comes five months after McFarland said his second attempt at Fyre Fest had been postponed indefinitely and refunds would be issued. Tickets for Fyre Festival 2, scheduled to take place in Mexico, had gone on sale in February starting at $1,400.
He later said he hoped to sell the Fyre Fest brand to someone better equipped to execute what he started.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com ’
