The Nanny musical in the works for Broadway by way of Fran Drescher, Rachel Bloom
All thoughts about a Nanny revival have been replaced by Wednesday’s tremendous news out of Broadway.
The Nanny, Fran Drescher’s iconically comic sitcom from the ’90s, is being developed as a musical by way of Drescher herself, series creator Peter Marc Jacobson, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s Rachel Bloom.
Drescher and Jacobson will write the book, while Bloom writes the lyrics and co-writes the music with her Crazy Ex-colleague Adam Schlesinger. Marc Bruni from Beautiful: The Carole King Musical will direct.
“We are SO excited to be working on the Broadway musical The Nanny,” Drescher and Jacobson said in a joint statement. “Nobody is cast yet — we’re plotting — but we feel confident we will find a fabulous actress who is funny, charming, and has a great voice,” they added.
“Of course I would do it myself,” Drescher said separately, “but we’d have to change the title to The Granny.”
Honestly, we should have put two and two together a while ago when Drescher was showing up to the premiere of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. When her hit CW musical show ended, Bloom mentioned Drescher in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.
“I’ve become friendly with Fran Drescher,” Bloom said earlier this year, “and I’ve been talking to her about this because I was at the final sound mix and I was sobbing — it was a good grief. And she was saying that, ‘oh yeah, when The Nanny ended, it felt like a friend had died,’ and that she’d talked to other women and she talked to Valerie Harper, who said the same thing. And I think there is something about when you embody someone, especially when you embody someone and then create someone, they’re not only a part of you, but they’re a family member.”
The Nanny, which was partly inspired by Drescher’s own life living in Queens, premiered in 1993 with the story of Fran Fine, who comes to the door of Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield to sell cosmetics after getting dumped, but then becomes the nanny to Mr. Sheffield’s kids. The series ended after 146 episodes in 1999.
“The Nanny was a fundamental part of my childhood because it was the first time I saw an openly Jewish female protagonist on television,” Bloom said in a statement. “The story of Fran Fine, however, is a universal one that has touched the hearts of people of every race, religion and orientation. I am so proud to be using the characters established by The Nanny to tell a new story about one woman’s journey to becoming proud of who she is and what makes her different.”
Drescher had mentioned the name Cardi B when talking about a possible reboot of the sitcom, though she also clarified networks didn’t have much interest in a revival.
“We’re talking about it. Peter and I are talking about it,” Drescher said in June. “We’re working on a very big project. It’s going to be very exciting for the fans, but I’m not at liberty to announce it yet. But it’s going to be big.”
Related content:
