Callie Khouri, who earned an Academy Award for her debut screenplay Thelma & Louise, is now attempting another first: writing a musical theatre version of the film. At 68, Khouri described the project with a mix of humour and apprehension, saying she hopes her luck as a newcomer — which she called "a world-class case of beginner’s luck" — will hold up and not see her "hit a wall here and slide down it like Wile E Coyote."
From screen to stage
Khouri acknowledged that Thelma & Louise is not an obvious candidate for musical adaptation. The original film, starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis (with a young Brad Pitt in a supporting role), grapples with an abusive marriage, an attempted rape, murder and a double suicide — events that, she said, do not immediately suggest "jazz hands." She added that she had turned down earlier offers to adapt the story for the stage before deciding to take on the challenge herself.
She said the outrage that fuelled the original screenplay remains with her and informs the new version, noting bluntly: "It's not good to walk through the world feeling like prey." That persistence of the issues that inspired the 1990s road movie, she argued, is part of what makes the project feel urgent despite its tonal difficulties.
A continuing career of firsts
Khouri is no stranger to unconventional trajectories: after Thelma & Louise she created the television series Nashville, which ran for six seasons. Now, as she works on a musical iteration of the story that first made her name, she is balancing respect for the film’s feminist road-movie spirit with the practical and ethical questions of translating its darker material into a different artistic form. She spoke of the adaptation as an attempt to maintain the original’s ultimately triumphant arc while finding a theatrical language for its painful content.
Whether the stage version will be able to reconcile those tensions remains to be seen. For Khouri, the project is both a return to familiar themes and a new creative test, one she hopes will extend rather than end the run of surprising firsts that have marked her career.