Reawakening ‘Sleeping Beauty’

AFTER “Open Window,” Deaf West Theatre’s next project will be a quirky update of the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty,” a collaboration with the rock band GrooveLily and librettist Rachel Sheinkin, who won a 2005 Tony for “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”

The as-yet-untitled show will tell the story of a princess who awakens in 20th century America, a thousand years and thousands of miles away from the castle in which she fell asleep.

“We can have some fun,” says Ed Waterstreet, Deaf West’s artistic director. “She may find that the U.S. has a deaf president, or she may get herself a job at the Gap.”

This will be Deaf West’s first original musical. Previously, it presented revivals of “Oliver!” and of “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” which opened in 2001, then moved to the Mark Taper Forum and to Broadway, where it won special Tony honors.

Jeff Calhoun, who directed “Oliver!” and “Big River,” will be involved in the Sleeping Beauty project, scheduled to run next spring at Deaf West’s theater in North Hollywood.