All the adaptations of 'The Great Gatsby' on Broadway and beyond

Numerous theatremakers have repeated the past by adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel into plays, musicals, and immersive experiences around the world.

Now that we're once again in the '20s and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby has entered the public domain, it's no wonder that the classic novel is having a renaissance — particularly on stage. Two Gatsby adaptations played in New York within the past year, and two more are on the way.

Right now, you can catch the Tony Award-nominated The Great Gatsby Broadway musical, which stars Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada at the Broadway Theatre. They're the latest actors to put their spin on the tale of mysterious, lovesick billionaire Jay Gatsby and his out-of-reach love, Daisy Buchanan — but they're certainly not the first.

Learn more about the past, present, and future of The Great Gatsby on Broadway and beyond, and get tickets to see Gatsby's world roar to life, old sport.

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1926: The Great Gatsby Broadway play

Spring 2024's The Great Gatsby show may be the first Broadway musical adaptation of the novel, but a non-musical play adaptation actually hit the stage a year after Fitzgerald released his book. Written by Owen Davis and directed by George Cukor (director of the My Fair Lady and 1954 A Star is Born movies), the show ran for 112 performances at the Ambassador Theatre (currently home to Chicago).

That might seem like a short run, but the show achieved further popularity by touring across the country. Davis's script was also the basis for the first Gatsby film adaptation, also in 1926, that has since been lost. The playscript, however, was just published in print for the first time in 2024.

2005: Gatz

Gatz isn't your traditional Gatsby adaptation. Created by the experimental theatre company Elevator Repair Service, it's a 6.5-hour, word-for-word staging of Fitzgerald's entire novel. Gatz (so titled because Jay Gatsby's legal name is James Gatz) begins with a businessman finding a copy of the book on his cluttered desk, which he begins to read — and soon becomes engrossed, bringing the characters to life.

The play has traveled across the country and the world, with performances from Chicago to Dublin to Sydney. The Public Theater presented Gatz off Broadway in 2010 and 2012, and it did so again in November 2024 with most of the original cast.

Gatz does include a dinner break and two intermissions, bringing the total run time to about 8 hours. If you have the stamina, Gatz is worth it: The show has received widespread praise, with The New York Times calling it "one of the most exciting and improbable accomplishments in theater in recent years" in 2010.

2015: The Great Gatsby: The Immersive Show

If you ever wished you could attend one of Gatsby's parties after reading about them, The Great Gatsby: The Immersive Show offered your best chance. British theatremakers Alexander Wright and Brian Hook co-conceived the show in a London pub in 2015, and it went on to play various London venues for seven total years, making The Great Gatsby the city's longest-running immersive show of all time.

The show has since played in Belgium, South Korea, Wales, Ireland, and, most recently, New York. A long-abandoned wing of the Park Central Hotel in Midtown Manhattan was refurbished as Gatsby Mansion, where attendees drank and danced alongside performers who acted out the Gatsby tale throughout various rooms. The Great Gatsby: The Immersive Show ran off Broadway from June to August 2023; afterward, the Gatsby Mansion hosted a few 20s-themed nightlife events.

2023: The Great Gatsby Broadway musical

In 2021, The Great Gatsby book entered the public domain, kicking off a wave of new adaptations. One of them is the first Broadway musical adapted from the book, featuring a script by Kait Kerrigan and songs by Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen. The show premiered at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse in 2023 before coming to Broadway in 2024, both times starring Tony nominees Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada as Gatsby and Daisy.

Howland and Tysen's score blends period jazz and contemporary pop sounds, and some song titles borrow from famous phrases in the book, like "My Green Light" and "Beautiful Little Fool." Life-size, 1920s-style cars even appear on stage during various scenes!

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2024: Gatsby: An American Myth

Right on the heels of Kerrigan, Howland, and Tysen's Gatsby was yet another musical adaptation: Gatsby: An American Myth, which made its world premiere at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in May 2024. This version features songs by Florence Welch (of Florence + The Machine) and Thomas Bartlett, a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok (Cost of Living), and direction by Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown). The show gives The Great Gatsby a dark, sultry, alt-rock infused twist.

The Boston cast included Broadway veterans Isaac Cole Powell, Ben Levi Ross, and Solea Pfeiffer.

Other The Great Gatsby adaptations

The Great Gatsby has also been adapted for the screen multiple times. The most recent was in 2013, directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. His other theatre-adjacent films include 1996's Romeo + Juliet (also starring DiCaprio) and the 2001 movie musical Moulin Rouge!, whose Broadway adaptation has run at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre since 2019.

Before that, a 1974 version starred Robert Redford as Gatsby and Mia Farrow (who is returning to Broadway in fall 2024's The Roommate) as Daisy. The film was produced by legendary theatre producer David Merrick, and the script was by Francis Ford Coppola, whose film adaptation of S. E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders partly inspired a 2024 Broadway musical.