Brodaway musical producers seem intent on raiding every single popular movie released in the last 30 years for the stage, but few films in recent memory seem more suited to a stage musical than Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, an autobiographical account of his time as a young rock reporter for Rolling Stone. The film has rich period detail, great characters and — most importantly — lots of music. In the film, the soundtrack was largely classic rock tracks plus some originals written as the music of the band Crowe’s character follows on the road, Stillwater. Replace the famous hits with some originals and you’re in business. In hindsight, it’s surprising it took this long to try this.

It finally happened this week (officially, anyway), when a press released announced that work had commenced on the Almost Famous musical. Most importantly, Crowe himself is involved with the show, writing its book and co-writing its songs:

Producers Lia Vollack on behalf of Columbia Live Stage, Joey Parnes, Sue Wagner, and John Johnson confirmed today that Almost Famous, a new musical adapted from the seminal Cameron Crowe motion picture, is in the works. The musical will feature a book by Crowe based on his Academy Award-winning screenplay, music by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Tom Kitt, lyrics by Tom Kitt and Cameron Crowe, and directed by Jeremy Herrin.

If you’re not up on your Broadway, Kitt won the Pulitzer and Tony for Next to Normal, a rock musical about a woman with bipolar disorder. He also wrote or co-wrote the music for the High FidelityBring It On, and Freaky Friday musicals, so he’s played this whole film-to-musical game several times before.

A few days ago, Crowe pretty much let the news slip, with this Twitter video from behind-the-scenes of the show:

It’s notable that Crowe is helping writing the music in addition to the book. (Crowe co-wrote three of the Stillwater songs in the original film with Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson, who was his wife at the time.) These folks are extremely talented but it’s gonna be tough to find a replacement for “Tiny Dancer.”

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