Scarlett (musical)

Scarlett
Gone With The Wind
Original London Cast recording
Music	Harold Rome
Lyrics	Harold Rome
Book	Kazuo Kikuta (Japanese); Horton Foote (English)
Basis	Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone With the Wind
Productions	1970 Tokyo 1972 West End

Scarlett is a 1970 musical with a score by Harold Rome. The original 1966 Japanese book is by Kazuo Kikuta, and the English version of the book is by Horton Foote. The Tokyo production was directed by American director/choreographer Joe Layton, who later directed a production in the London West End. London producer Harold Fielding cancelled his plans for a 1974 Broadway production, and the musical has never been performed on Broadway.

Based on Margaret Mitchell's bestseller Gone with the Wind, it traces the fate of self-centered Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara and her passionately turbulent relationship with dashing blockade runner Rhett Butler, from the days prior to the American Civil War through the war itself and the following period of Reconstruction.

In 1966, a nine-hour play (without music) based on Gone with the Wind opened at the Tokyo Imperial Theatre. This production was highly successful, and Kazuo Kikuta and the Toho Company decided to produce a musical version of Gone with the Wind at the same theatre. Kikuta wrote the book to the new musical, but the rest of the production was largely the work of Americans—the music and lyrics were by American Harold Rome, the director was American Joe Layton, and the musical director was well-known Broadway conductor Lehman Engel. The original Tokyo production was presented in two parts - each for 6 months - and each ran four hours long. The production opened in January 1970 with the title Scarlett.