10 THINGS WE LOVE
ABOUT THIS ALREADY

The popular teen comedy heads to Broadway
with Carly Rae Jepsen supplying the tunes

Padua High is back in session. 10 Things I Hate About You, the 1999 teen comedy that introduced a generation to Kat Stratford, Patrick Verona—and Heath Ledger singing his way across a set of bleachers—will become a new Broadway musical, beginning performances in exactly one year: August 17, 2027. The theater, casting and additional creative team will be announced later.

Lena Dunham (Charlotte Hadden)

And the creative team already makes this one worth watching. Lena Dunham and playwright Jessica Huang are writing the book, with music and lyrics by pop favorite Carly Rae Jepsen and Ethan Gruska. Two-time Tony winner Christopher Wheeldon, whose Broadway work includes An American in Paris and MJ, will direct and choreograph, while Tom Kitt handles music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations.

Jessica Huang (Jenny Anderson)

For those who somehow missed the movie—or weren’t teenagers around the turn of the millennium—10 Things I Hate About You is itself a contemporary spin on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Set at Padua High, the story follows sisters Kat and Bianca as romance, rebellion, cliques and teenage machinations collide. The musical promises to return to that world while focusing on two young women trying to figure out who they are without allowing everyone around them to do the figuring for them.

Carly Rae Jepsen (Vince Aung)

The film, written by Karen McCullah and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, became a cult favorite and helped launch the careers of Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Heath Ledger. And really, can anyone who saw it forget Ledger commandeering the school stadium to serenade Kat with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”?

Christopher Wheeldon (Benjamin Rivera)

Jepsen is an especially intriguing choice for the score. Best known for the unavoidable “Call Me Maybe,” she has built a substantial pop career since that 2012 phenomenon, while her 2015 album E•MO•TION developed a particularly devoted following. Broadway isn’t entirely foreign territory, either: Jepsen starred as Cinderella in the 2014 Broadway production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Gruska, meanwhile, has worked with artists including Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver, Remi Wolf and John Legend.

Tom Kitt (Jenny Anderson)

There’s no word yet on who will inherit Kat, Bianca, Patrick and Cameron—or whether Patrick will once again grab a microphone and take over the stadium. But with Dunham and Huang reshaping the screenplay, Jepsen and Gruska writing the songs, and Wheeldon putting the whole thing in motion, this is one class reunion I’m already looking forward to.

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10 Things I Hate About You
Broadway
begins August 17, 2027
theater and casting to be announced
for updates, visit 10 Things I Hate About You on Broadway

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