In Pretty Woman: The Musical, a rom-com classic makes leap from screen to stage with red dress and romance intact

When: March 29 to April 2
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 630 Hamilton St., Vancouver
Tickets: $47-168 at ticketmaster.ca

It was Barbara Marshall’s love of Broadway that prompted Pretty Woman’s journey to the stage.

“Every time I went to New York to see plays there would be a musical based on a movie,” said Barbara, the widow of Garry Marshall, the director of the 1990 movie. “And I kept telling Garry that I thought Pretty Woman could be a musical.”

The film, about a ruthless corporate trader who hires a sex worker to be his companion for a week, was a huge hit, and made a star out of Julia Roberts. But Marshall, a director and writer with one of the most storied careers in Hollywood, and J.F. Lawton, the film’s screenwriter, were initially reluctant to turn it into a musical.