23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Lena Dunham and Carly Rae Jepsen to bring 10 Things I Hate About You to Broadway
Nearly 30 years after it cemented 1999 as a watershed year for teen movies, 10 Things I Hate About You is headed to Broadway, led by Lena Dunham and Carly Rae Jepsen.
Dunham, the creator of another coming-of-age touchstone with HBO's Girls, will co-write the adaptation with playwright Jessica Huang. Pop singer-songwriter Jepsen will write the score with Ethan Gruska, with whom she worked on her most recent album, 2023's The Loveliest Time.
The musical, first reported by Billboard, rounds out its creative team with Tony-winning director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, who most recently provided music and lyrics for Almost Famous: The Musical; and producer Mike Bosner, who helped shepherd Shucked and Beautiful – The Carole King Musical to Broadway.
Based on Shakespeare's 1594 play The Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate About You was a box office hit in 1999 that gained cult-favorite status in the years since, launching the careers of Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. Written by Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith and directed by Gil Junger, the romantic comedy followed the travails of the Stratford sisters in the 1990s Seattle suburbs, as they're subjected to their father's strict rules on dating and wooed by fellow students.
The film was later adapted into a TV sitcom by ABC Family, which ran for 20 episodes starting in 2009.
Dunham's latest project, the rom-com series Too Much, will be released by Netflix later this year. The show stars Megan Stalter as Jessica, a New Yorker who starts over in London after a breakup and connects with Will Sharpe's Felix. She is also writing a film on disgraced crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, of FTX collapse fame, for Apple and A24, as well as the upcoming rom-com Good Sex, starring Natalie Portman.
Jepsen, the Canadian songwriter behind such hits as Call Me Maybe and Run Away With Me, took over the title role in the Broadway production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella in 2014, and played Frenchy in Fox's Emmy-winning Grease: Live. The adaptation will be her first opportunity to work behind the scenes as a musical contributor.
An opening date and theater for the 10 Things I Hate About You musical is yet to be announced.
