Brokeback Mountain to be adapted as West End play starring Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges

Brokeback Mountain is being adapted into a play with music, starring Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges.

In a press release on Monday (20 March), it was announced that Annie Proulx’s seminal short story about two sheep herders who fall in love will make its stage debut at the new London theatre, @sohoplace.

Faist and Hedges will play Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, respectively.

The play will also feature original music from singer-songwriter Dan Gillespie Sells, who is the lead singer of The Feeling.

Ashley Robinson, who wrote the script for the play, describes the inclusion of music as a way to “give voice to the tumultuous inner landscape of our wannabe cowboys (both young men of few words), and provide the scope of our vast and brutal outer landscape, not to mention allowing Proulx’s poetic prose to literally sing”.

Faist has received Tony and Bafta nominations for his work in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway and his portrayal of Jets leader Riff in West Side Story (2021).

Hedges received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination in 2017 for Manchester By The Sea, as well as acclaim for his performance in Boy Erased.

Since its initial publication as a short story in The New Yorker in 1997, Annie Proulx’s tale has reached millions.

Its most notable adaptation is the 2005 film of the same name, directed by Ang Lee and starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. The film garnered widespread praise and earned three Academy Awards, including Best Director for Lee.

In a statement, Proulx shared her anticipation for audiences to experience the story in a new way.

She wrote: “Brokeback Mountain has been recreated in several different forms, each with its own distinctive moods and impact. Ashley’s script is fresh and deeply moving, opening sight lines not visible in the original nor successive treatments.”

The story was also adapted into an opera by the American composer Charles Wuorinen, which had its world premiere in Madrid in 2014.

Brokeback Mountain will be performed @sohoplace from Wednesday 10 May to Sunday 20 August.