Public Theater Looking for New Home for ‘Here Lies Love’

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Jose Llana, center, and Ruthie Ann Miles as Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in “Here Lies Love” at the Public Theater.

The Public Theater is deep into a search for a new home for its hit musical “Here Lies Love,” which closes there on Sunday, with executives ordering up design options for an array of theater spaces and negotiating with Broadway and downtown theater producers about re-mounting the show in the near future.

Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public, said in an interview on Tuesday that he hoped to announce plans in the next month for “Here Lies Love,” a disco-infused rendering of the life of Imelda Marcos created by the musicians David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and director Alex Timbers,

Mr. Eustis said the show’s set designer, David Korins, and the New York architect Mitchell Kurtz, who has worked on Public projects before, have developed designs for four different space configurations that might fit “Here Lies Love,” which is now playing in an open rectangular hall that has been tricked out to feel like a Studio 54-style club.

Given the musical’s unusual staging by Mr. Timbers - the actors perform on two platforms, linked by moving catwalks, with many audience members standing and dancing alongside them - the Public is now looking at sufficiently flexible options for a new space.

Broadway is one possibility, Mr. Eustis said, though a Broadway house would have to be reconfigured to retain the club environment of the Public production.

“It is certainly true that we are looking at conventional theater spaces as well as unconventional spaces,” he said. “But wherever we go, we will maintain the actor-audience relationship and interaction, and the space will have to keep the feel and energy of a nightclub.”

Among the theater producers that the Public is talking to are Joey Parnes, a partner on the Broadway transfers of the Public productions of “Hair,” “The Merchant of Venice,” and “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” according to two theater executives with knowledge of the discussions.

The two executives, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to disclose confidential talks, said other possible producers included Hal Luftig (“Kinky Boots,” which won this year’s Tony Award for best musical), and the theater producer and club owner Randy Weiner, who is involved with another well-received immersive downtown show, “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.”

Mr. Parnes and Mr. Luftig did not return phone messages this week; Mr. Weiner referred questions to the Public.

Mr. Eustis declined to discuss the producers he is talking to, only saying, “We are fielding offers from many, many people here in New York, and we’re getting a stunning level of interest from people in other cities as well as overseas in countries where they think the show could be popular. But we have no deals in place at this point.” The National Theater in London is among those interested in mounting “Here Lies Love” next summer, according to the Daily Mail.

“Here Lies Love” opened in April at the Public’s LuEsther Hall to some of the best reviews of the season, but is closing to make way for other work in the space. The LuEsther fits about 160 people; the Public is hoping to find a much larger space, as well as one where alcohol could be served, to enhance the club atmospherics and generate revenue.