How Classic Reggae Movie ‘The Harder They Come’ Was Remade for the Stage
How do you take a seminal movie that just celebrated its 50th anniversary and create a contemporary musical with reggae, a genre of music rarely seen on stage? That was the challenge facing Tony Taccone (director) and Sergio Trujillo (co-director) of The Harder They Come which began previews earlier this month at New York City’s Public Theater with performances running through March 26.
“The film is celebrated all over the world for its contribution to creating an authentic Jamaican culture. A whole strata of Jamaicans had never seen themselves on screen like that,” Taccone said of the 1972 cult classic which follows the journey of Ivan, a singer who hopes to become a star and soon finds himself on the run from police.
In Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and The Public’s Writer-in-Residence, Suzan-Lori Parks, the directors found a collaborator who brought a “cinematic” and “seamless” experience to the scene writing, Trujillo said.