MTI has acquired the Outer Critics Circle and Tony Award®-nominated musical Flying Over Sunset!

Nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Original Score, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Best Scenic Design and Best Lighting Design, this production was welcomed with open arms by the Broadway community with critics calling it “ambitious” “frequently moving” and “unique”.

Written by Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner James Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Little Miss Sunshine), Flying Over Sunset features a gorgeous score written by Tony, Grammy®, Emmy® and Pulitzer Prize Award winner Tom Kitt (Next to Normal, If/Then) and lyrics by Tony nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens).

Flying Over Sunset follows three extraordinary public figures as they take an exhilarating journey into the most colorful corners of the human psyche. Picture this: 1950s Hollywood. You are at a beautiful beach house overlooking the Pacific with movie star Cary Grant, writer and socialite Clare Boothe Luce, and author and philosopher Aldous Huxley…as they share an otherworldly trip and their most guarded desires, hopes, and insecurities. 

Drew Cohen, President and CEO of Music Theatre International stated, “Flying Over Sunset is a wonderfully unique musical that will thrill audiences and provide adventurous directors a rare opportunity to flex their creative muscles. James Lapine has written an original and heartfelt book that invites us to explore the meaning of individual desire, love, and loss.  Tom Kitt dazzles with a breathtaking score and Michael Korie provides deep insight with his captivating lyrics. We look forward to seeing new productions of this show on stages around the country as well as internationally.”

Flying Over Sunset was originally workshopped in August 2015 at the Vineyard Arts Project in Martha’s Vineyard and was set to premiere in March 2020, but was halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The show, premiered November 11, 2021 and opened a month later on December 13, 2021.

“We loved the challenge of creating Flying Over Sunset and are thrilled that MTI will be licensing our musical,” remarked James Lapine, Tom Kitt and Michael Korie. “Our show provides wonderful opportunities for presenters, directors, choreographers, designers, and actors to express themselves and offers audiences a truly unique, funny and moving musical experience.”

Praise for Flying Over Sunset:

“Mixing up the senses is very much a quality of this thoughtful and unusually literate musical, which bookwriter and director Lapine has apparently conceived as a head trip with brains.”

– Variety

“a musical that pushes against the traditional notions of what a Broadway musical might or should be.”

– Broadway News

“a trip worth taking…irresistibly watchable under any circumstances.”

-Wall Street Journal

While the show is not yet available for licensing, theatres are encouraged to visit the MTI show page and click “follow” to be alerted about upcoming news and licensing announcements. International restrictions apply.