Musical Brings Back Steve Rubell and Studio 54

Versatile entertainer Tommy Tune has developed a stage musical based on the late Steve Rubell and his legendary nightclub Studio 54, featuring Liza, Warhol, Halston, and Capote, that he hopes to bring to Broadway, reports The New York Times.

The multiple Tony Award-winning actor-director-choreographer has been crafting Fifty Four Forever, a musical that celebrates the hedonistic era of the late '70s and is filled with disco standards, for the past year. In an unorthodox move, the first production of the show is currently being performed at the University of Miami, with Rubell, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1989, being portrayed by Kyle Axman, a 20-year-old junior.

The Times suggests that two unsuccessful shows Tune was involved with in the 1990s, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public and Busker Alley, convinced him that Broadway is currently dominated by play-it-safe producers who constantly second-guess their directors and artists.

Tune hopes to eventually bring the show to New York and to produce it at the real Studio 54, which is now a Broadway house owned by Roundabout Theater Company. According to the Times, Tune "has invited Roundabout executives [to the University of Miami production], as well as dozens of other New York producers, artists and press agents, though no deals have been made."