Moulin Rouge! The Musical Tickets

By: Book by John Logan, based on the film by Baz Luhrmann
Director: Alex Timbers
Producer: Carmen Pavlovic for Global Creatures and Bill Damaschke
Cast list: John Cardoza (as Christian), Solea Pfeiffer (as Satine), Robert Petkoff (as Harold Zidler), André Ward (as Toulouse-Lautrec), David Harris (as The Duke), Pepe Muñoz (as Santiago), Sophie Carmen-Jones (as Nini), Hailee Kaleem Wright (as Satine alternate)
Design: Derek McLane
Lighting: Justin Townsend
Costume: Catherine Zuber
Choreography: Sonya Tayeh
Sound: Peter Hylenski
Other info: Music supervision, orchestrations, and arrangements by Justin Levine; music production by Matt Stine; makeup design by Sarah Cimino; wig and hair design by David Brian Brown

Based on the award-winning 2001 film starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, Moulin Rouge! The Musical follows a couple whose world is turned upside down by true love and passion in turn-of-the-century Paris. The writer Christian and the courtesan Satine fall into a forbidden backstage romance at the titular nightclub — until Christian realizes there’s more than just the villainous Duke putting a stop to their relationship.

Between 2002 and 2003, shortly after the Moulin Rouge! movie got a Best Picture Oscar nomination and two other wins, rumors started to fly about a stage adaptation. Those rumors faded, but finally proved true in 2016, when Moulin Rouge! The Musical was officially announced. Aaron Tveit and Karen Olivo led the show’s first workshop in 2017, and they went on to star in the 2018 world premiere in Boston and the 2019 Broadway premiere.

Both received Tony nominations for their performances, and Tveit and Danny Burstein (as Harold Zidler) won awards. Moulin Rouge! The Musical also swept the design categories, winning for set, costume, lighting, and sound design. The musical’s cast recording also got a Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theater Album.

What to watch for

• In the movie, Christian is an Englishman. In Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway, Christian is an American fleeing the Industrial Revolution in search of artistic purpose.
• Baz Luhrmann, who directed and co-wrote the iconic 2001 film, came from a very artistic background. His mother was a ballroom dance instructor who gave him lessons early on, and his father insisted he study painting and music.
• Luhrmann says director Alex Timbers “feels like a younger cousin,” and Timbers says Luhrmann’s work inspires him. Luhrmann has watched performances of Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway and is a keen supporter of the show.
• Moulin Rouge! The Musical is loosely based on two classic stories. One is Puccini’s opera La Bohème, also about bohemian friends in 20th-century Paris. The other is the tragic Greek myth of Orpheus, a talented musician who seeks to rescue his true love, Eurydice, from the clutches of Hades. (The Broadway musical Hadestown is also, and more directly, based on that myth.)
• The Moulin Rouge! The Musical set contains homages to the film and the real Moulin Rouge. The iconic elephant-shaped dressing room and red windmill from the movie are recreated here, and both are also hallmarks of the actual nightclub.
• One of the Moulin Rouge! The Musical characters, a bohemian artist named Toulouse-Lautrec, was a real French artist well known for creating promotional posters for the Moulin Rouge. Similarly, the character of nightclub owner Harold Zidler is partly named for the real club’s co-founder, Charles Zidler.
• The Moulin Rouge! film is part of Luhrmann’s “Red Curtain Trilogy” of movies with the performing arts — theatre, dance, poetry, song — as a major theme and storytelling tool. The others are Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet. Like Moulin Rouge!, Strictly Ballroom has become a stage musical in the U.K. Romeo + Juliet hasn’t yet joined them, but you never know!