The producers of the film “Ray” are re-teaming to bring a Ray Charles stage project to Broadway, according to the “Hollywood Reporter.” Producers Stuart Benjamin and Howard and Karen Baldwin have acquired dramatic-musical rights to the project from the Ray Charles estate and Ray Charles Enterprises.
Unlike the Universal biopic starring Jamie Foxx, the Broadway play will span his entire career, allowing the producers to showcase Charles’ lifetime repertoire of music. It will also combine performances with dramatic vignettes that will tell stories of Charles’ business, political and charitable endeavors.
“This will be more of the warmth and the personality of Ray as well as some of the anecdotes and stories that weren’t in the movie,” Benjamin told the “Hollywood Reporter.”
The stage version will also focus less on Charles’ drug addictions and infidelities, which were prominent aspects of the film.
“This will be a celebration of Ray, somebody I got to be very close to over the years, someone I respected and someone whose company I enjoyed,” Benjamin told the trade. “What is really in my mind is to convey some of that. As was the movie, this is an enormous responsibility. We will take our time and make sure it’s done correctly.”
A search for playwrights is now under way. Benjamin produced both soundtrack CDs, the television special “Genius: A Night for Ray Charles” and the “Ray” DVD.