Exclusive: Revamped Here Lies Love Will Be Tested in Seattle With Eye on the Future

The original Off-Broadway creative team has created a new staging of the immersive hit about Imelda Marcos that is aiming for a future life.

Here Lies Love, the immersive musical created by David Byrne of The Talking Heads and DJ Fatboy Slim that centers around the personal and political history of Filipina First Lady Imelda Marcos, is getting another incarnation at Seattle Repertory Theatre April 7–May 28, 2017.

The entire creative team from the acclaimed Public Theater production, including director Alex Timbers, scenic designer David Korins (Hamilton), and choreographer Annie-B Parson, are reuniting in Seattle to test this new version that will be able to play traditional proscenium spaces.

Billed as a “360-degree multimedia spectacle,” the Public Theater production had no traditional seating, and set the musical within a dance club atmosphere in the Public’s LuEsther Hall. The audience continually moved around the space as scenes shifted in a dizzying array of scenes that played like pop music videos.

If all goes well in Seattle, it is expected that Here Lies Love will return in a major, high-profile production within the next few years.

Timbers told Playbill.com via email, “We loved the two runs [of Here Lies Love] in New York, but always wished more people could have seen it. Set designer David Korins had a completely outside-of-the-box idea a year ago about how to take the production at the Public Theater and fit it within a more traditional proscenium theatre—but without losing any of the exciting club experience or the immersive 360 staging surrounding the audience.

“If this is as successful at Seattle Rep as we anticipate it to be, then it will change the game in terms of where this production of the show can be produced and then anything is possible for the future of it.”

It is expected that the Seattle Rep version will recreate many of the Off-Broadway elements. There will be a main floor with audiences moving about, as well as higher gallery seating that overlooks the action.

Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 charted a similar path to Broadway following its Off-Broadway premiere. The entire creative team reassembled at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, last winter to adapt the immersive production for a proscenium theatre. That production transferred to Broadway’s Imperial Theatre this fall.

No casting for Here Lies Love has been announced, but it is expected that several original cast members will be part of the Seattle Rep staging. The Public Theater cast included Tony Award winner Ruthie Ann Miles, Jose Llana, and How to Get Away With Murder Star Conrad Ricamora.

The Here Lies Love creative team also includes costume designer Clint Ramos, lighting designer Justin Townsend, sound designers M. L. Dogg and Cody Spencer, and projection designer Peter Nigrini.

Watch highlights from the Off-Broadway run here.

Visit seattlerep.org.