The New York Post reports that acclaimed film director Spike Lee plans
to direct a Broadway revival of Stalag 17 in early 2008.
British actor Clive Owen will likely star in the play, which bowed on
Broadway in 1951 at the 48th Street Theatre. José Ferrer directed the
original Broadway run.
The play, penned by former prisoners of war Donald Bevan and Edmund
Trzcinski, is set in December 1944 in a barrack of Stalag 17 in
Germany during the Second World War. The original Broadway production
officially opened May 8, 1951, and played 472 performances at the 48th
Street Theatre before closing June 21, 1952. The cast featured John
Ericson as Sefton and Mark Roberts as Dunbar.
The 1953 film, directed by Billy Wilder, cast William Holden as Sefton
and Don Taylor as Lt. Dunbar with Otto Preminger as Col. Von
Scherbach.
Stalag 17 would mark the Broadway bow for Lee, whose many films
include “She’s Gotta Have It,” “School Daze,” “Do the Right Thing,”
“Malcolm X” and “Jungle Fever.”
