Former The Police frontman Sting has penned a musical about the decline of the British shipyards and he’s planning on bringing it to New York’s Broadway. Titled The Last Ship, Sting and co-producer Jeffrey Seller held a reading for the musical last week with hopes of opening it to Broadway audiences next spring, which will likely be followed by a transfer to West-End.
Sting has written both the music and the lyrics for the show, which is based on his album The Soul Cages. The story is about a family of shipbuilders whose future is thrown into turmoil when the shipyard where they have worked for years is forced to shut down.
One American who attended the reading made this observation:
“It’s got that Billy Elliot thing going on. You know,. Working-class people who maintain their dignity in the face of adversity.”
