Details of David Bowie’s ‘Lazarus’ Stage Project Surface

The director of David Bowie's upcoming stage musical Lazarus has shared a few details regarding the project, and it sounds every bit as challenging and unusual as fans might expect.

Director Ivo van Hove shed some light on Lazarus during a recent visit from The New York Times, which published a set report with a headline promising a peek into the "Strange, Secretive World" of the show. Van Hove did not disappoint, sharing a synopsis that says it "focuses on Newton as he remains on Earth, a man unable to die, his head soaked in cheap gin, and haunted by a past love. We follow Newton through the course of a few days where the arrival of another lost soul might set him free."

The Times also spoke with Bowie's Lazarus co-writer, Enda Walsh, who penned the Tony-winning Once. Referring to the narrative ground the show covers as "my territory," Walsh promised "a mixture of romance and itchy violence" and added, "I understand that isolated, lonely, broken, unstable sort of character."

Lazarus, which the Times added is already the fastest-selling show in the history of the Off Broadway New York Theater Workshop, starts performances Nov. 18, with an official opening scheduled for Dec. 7.

In related news, director Danny Boyle has admitted that he only started developing his latest film, the Michael Fassbender-led biopic Steve Jobs, after a planned Bowie musical fell apart because he couldn't secure rights to the music. Telling Radio Times that the project's collapse left him "in grief," he said he started working on Steve Jobs in an effort to "fill the space in my heart left by the abandoned Bowie script."

Meanwhile, Bowie has stayed busy in the recording studio. His next album, Blackstar, is due for release Jan. 8.

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