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EXCLUSIVE: Remember when geeky tween Jenna Fink was magically transformed into glamorous Jennifer Garner in the classic rom-com 13 Going on 30? That was two decades ago. Now that role’s being played by West End star Lucie Jones in a stage musical adapted from the beloved 2004 movie.
The show is headed for an out-of-town-tryout at the Manchester Opera House, where it will run for a limited season from September 21, 2025.
Just this past April, Garner joined fellow stars from the film — Mark Ruffalo, who played Matt Flamhaff, the boy next door who Jenna doesn’t realize holds a candle for her, and Judy Greer as Lucy Wyman, once her childhood nemesis and now an editing colleague at the fictional Poise magazine — for a 20th anniversary reunion on Zoom that spread far and wide on social media.
Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, who wrote the film’s screenplay, have penned the musical’s book, and Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner have written original songs.
The movie directed by Gary Winick, with its flash-forward romantic elements and sheer charm, totally lends itself to stage adaptation.
The show had a series of socially distanced readings in London in 2020, and last year director Andy Fickman — whose work incudes Playing with Fire, Christmas Again and Game Plan onscreen and Reefer Madness on stage and screen — oversaw a series of workshops at Battersea Arts Centre in south London.
Hamish Greer for producing company ROYO allowed me to view a video of what was performed. And I’m thrilled to report that the “30, flirty and thriving” flavor of the film has been beautifully captured.
The only number they’ve taken from the movie is one of the signature moments where Garner’s Jenna takes to the dance floor in a skimpy Versace dress and does all the quirky moves to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
“All the songs are original, written by Michael Weiner and Alan Zachary, who did First Date on Broadway, but ‘Thriller’ is the only one we’re sort of parachuting in because it’s such a good, iconic moment from the movie,” explains Greer, who is producing with Revolution Studios, Wendy Federman and Phil Kenny.
A decision was made, says Greer, not to use other songs from the movie’s soundtrack because they didn’t want it to be “a weird hybrid” of jukebox hits plus original numbers.
After Manchester, the hope is for 13 Going on 30 to transfer. The West End’s a bit of a car park with a stack of new shows waiting for old shows to expire, but the hope is definitely for a move there. After that, Broadway “would be the dream,” says an enthusiastic Goldsmith.
However, Greer was reluctant to comment on the show’s future after Manchester. “We’re still putting it together,” he reasons.
I remember watching the movie way back on a flight from London to Los Angeles. I knew Garner’s work, but at the time I was more interested in seeing Ruffalo, having seen him in Kenneth Lonergan’s Sundance hit You Can Count on Me. I admit to being slightly sniffy when I clicked on 13 Going on 30, because, well, it’s a girly story, but I got sucked in and kept wanting to know what happened next.
It’s a testament to the Goldsmith and Yuspa screenplay that the film still holds up.
“We grew up theater kids, theater lovers, before we ever got into film and television,” Goldsmith says.
He was raised in Philadelphia, while Yuspa grew up in the Washington D.C. area. Goldsmith remembers traveling up to New York to see shows and “waiting at the stage door and getting the autographs.” He still has binders full of Playbills from “every show I’ve ever seen since I was 10 years old, starting with Cats,” he boasts.
Yuspa observes that, growing up away from Hollywood, “theater is the thing that is accessible to a high school student. So we did both grow up loving that, and I was in the show choir and the plays, and the same with Josh.”
Apparently Goldsmith got all the best roles at theater camp. “I cleaned up at theater camp,” he laughs. “I don’t want to brag.”
Even though they’ve both enjoyed screen success with movies such as What Women Want and What Men Want and TV comedies The King of Queens and ‘Til Death, it was a love of movie musicals that lured them to Hollywood. “It’s in our DNA to love musicals,” says Yuspa. “The thing that really drew me to movies is I’m an old movie lover and I’m a huge Judy Garland fan.”
She adds: ”I grew up watching every old MGM movie there was and was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. So we entered movies and TV with, I would say, a deep love of musicals.”
But once they started writing for television, “that just sort of took over,” Goldsmith points out. “So it wasn’t like we necessarily thought about 13 Going on 30 as a musical at the time. But, for example, probably the most iconic scene in the movie is the ‘Thriller’ dance.”
He adds that “we think, even in movies, in musical terms in some ways. And so it wasn’t a huge jump to say: How could this be a musical?”
Part of the fun, I reckon, will be for fans of the movie to spot what’s different in the musical. “There are things that we really changed to help in various ways for it to play on stage, to make it sing and streamline it,” says Goldsmith.
“And there were many changes made, and how many are super-noticeable, I guess, will be the question to people. It was a challenge to make it work as a theater piece, but hopefully we’re in the process of making that happen,” he says.
I liked the story Yuspa tells of how they were inspired to pitch the original idea after observing their two 13-year-old cousins at a family Thanksgiving “who were kind of the original genesis of the movie because we thought they were so funny … and yet so deep … that it just felt like a really fun basis of a character.”
Now those cousins are 30, says Yuspa. ”It’s sort of like the original audience grew up and now sees it from the adult side.”
They’re excited about Lucie Jones being cast to play Jenna Fink, a role she performed so well for the workshop. “She’s just so sparkling and just so talented and really just embodied the character so well,” says Yuspa.
They were impressed by her “gorgeous voice” and her “childish charm.”
I’d echo those sentiments as well. So far, however, Jones is the only actor to be cast.
Others who participated in the workshop are being considered, but not all of them will be available for Manchester.
Jones enjoys a large following thanks to appearances on the UK version of The X Factor and the UK’s representative on the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. She also has starred in West End productions of Les Misérables, Wicked and Waitress.
Rehearsals will begin next summer, and the limited Manchester Opera House season will run from September 21 through October 12.
