A Degas Sculpture Inspires a New Musical

Arts Beat, New York Times, April 17, 2013 - The songwriting team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, Tony Award winners for “Ragtime,” will collaborate with the Tony-winning director Susan Stroman (“The Producers”) on the world premiere of the new musical “Little Dancer” in October 2014 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, the center announced Wednesday.
The show, a blend of fact and fiction set in the backstage world of the Paris Opera Ballet, is inspired by the sculpture of a young French ballerina that Edgar Degas made in the late 19th century. According to the Kennedy Center press notes, the musical is the story of the ballerina Marie, on the cusp of womanhood, as she is “torn by her family’s poverty, her debt to the artist, and the lure of wealthy men.”