Geoffrey Rush will star in a big screen version of the Broadway hit The Drowsy Chaperone.

The musical’s Tony Award-winning writer says The King’s Speech star will also executive produce.

Don McKellar, who co-wrote the stage smash with Bob Martin, adds that they expect to begin shooting next year. The musical began as a Toronto Fringe Festival production.

Rush played Man in Chair in the 2010 Australian version of the farce, which parodies American musicals of the 1920s.

McKellar revealed Rush’s involvement while promoting the debut of his film The Grand Seduction at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.

The comedy stars Brendan Gleeson and Gordon Pinsent as residents of a dying Newfoundland town trying to lure a big city doctor, played by Taylor Kitsch.

McKellar and Martin are also reuniting for a new TV series called Sensitive Skin, starring Kim Cattrall. That is expected to shoot in the fall in Toronto, with McKellar directing and co-starring.