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MANDELA MUSICAL EYES BROADWAY: Plus, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking meets former leader while searching for young African scientists.
*A forthcoming memoir on Nelson Mandela will serve as the basis for a new musical about the South African leader's fight to end apartheid, reports Daily Variety.
The production will mix historical events with anecdotes from a forthcoming memoir by Zindzi Mandela about growing up in the apartheid era as the daughter of Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Peace Prize winner whose efforts played a major role in ending the South African policy of racial segregation. He was elected president of the nation when apartheid was abolished in 1994.
No creative team or director has yet been nailed down for the project, although Welcome Msomi, a South African scribe and producer, will assist with the show.
Routh/Frankel/Baruch/Viertel Group and PSE Broadway have teamed to serve as producers for the project, which is aiming for a Broadway debut in May 2010.
In other Mandela news, scientist Stephen Hawking paid him a visit on Thursday while in the country to launch the Next Einstein initiative, which is designed to unearth budding scientists and mathematicians throughout Africa.
"I am very pleased to meet you. I admire how you managed to find a peaceful solution to a situation that seemed doomed to disaster," the British astrophysicist told Mandela who stood down as president nine years ago. "It was one of the great achievements of the 20th century. If only the Israelis and the Palestinians could do the same."
Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, was diagnosed with the muscle-wasting Motor Neuron Disease at the age of 22. He is in a wheelchair and speaks with the aid of a computer and voice synthesizer.
Pik Botha, South Africa's foreign minister during the whites-only apartheid regime, accompanied Hawking on the visit to Mandela's offices in Johannesburg.
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