Stephen King\'s \'Misery\' Back From the Dead in Bucks County

September 20, 2012, 10:30 am

By PATRICK HEALY

“Misery is alive, Misery is alive!” Kathy Bates cries with wild-eyed joy in her Academy Award-winning performance in the 1990 horror movie “Misery,” ecstatic that the heroine of her favorite books has been brought back from the dead. “I'm going to put on my Liberace records!”

This fall Misery Chastain will live again, this time on stage: The theatrical division of Warner Bros. Entertainment announced on Thursday that it had developed a play based on the original “Misery” novel by Stephen King that will run Nov. 24-Dec. 8 at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pa.

The script is by the two-time Oscar winner William Goldman, whom Warner Bros. recruited in Hollywood's latest attempt a t synergy between the film and theater worlds. Mr. Goldman previously adapted the King novel for the screen version of “Misery,” and won his Academy Awards for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President's Men.”

No casting was announced for the lead roles of the mystery writer Paul Sheldon (played by James Caan in the film) and Annie Wilkes, Ms. Bates's character, a homicidal nurse and Sheldon's “No. 1 fan” who holds him prisoner in her home after a car accident leaves him badly injured.

There are no plans at this point for a future run in New York or elsewhere, a spokeswoman for the production said. Still, the producing director of Bucks County Playhouse, Jed Bernstein, who is also a Broadway producer, noted in a telephone interview on Thursday that the playhouse “historically has been a launching pad for shows like ‘Harvey' to go on to Broadway and elsewhere, and we're very excited to be make th e playhouse a key part of the Broadway and theater development process.” The playhouse reopened in July after staving off foreclosure and being restored after years of physical decay.

“Misery” will be staged by Will Frears, who also directed the movie “Coach” and several Off Broadway plays including “Year Zero” and “The Water's Edge.” The creative team will include several Broadway veterans, including the Oscar winner Ann Roth (costumes), “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” the composer Michael Friedman (music), and Rick Sordelet (fight direction).

Warner Bros. Theater Ventures has produced a handful of shows on Broadway, including the musicals “Elf” (which is returning for an encore run this fall) and the critically derided “Baby It's You” and “Lestat.” Executives of the theater division said in a statement that “Misery” was one of several stage projects in the pipeline from the studio's catalog of films.