by FOX had a cultural hit in bringing a live version of the musical Grease to TV, and this Christmas, they hope to capture the same magic by casting Maya Rudolph in A Christmas Story, airing live on Dec. 17, 2017.
Rudolph will star as 9-year-old Ralphie Parker’s mom. No word yet on who’ll play Ralphie, or his dad, as foils to Rudolph.
But the three-hour live TV event, inspired from the Tony-nominated Broadway adaptation of the 1983 holiday classic movie, will be executive-produced by Marc Platt (Grease: Live, La La Land) and filmed on the Warner Bros. Studios lot in Burbank, Calif.
Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, this year’s Tony Award winners for the musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” and lyricists of “La La Land’s” Academy Award-winning song, “City of Stars,” also scored “A Christmas Story: The Musical,” and will compose several new songs for the LIVE television event, with Jonathan Tolins and Robert Cary (Grease: Live) adapting the book.
The 2012 Broadway musical by Pasek and Paul earned three Tony nominations (Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical).
