A new musical based on Southern Comfort, the 2001 documentary film about the life of Robert Eads, will premiere in the fall.

Kate Davis' film covers the final year of Eads' life.

The 52-year-old Eads is living in the back hills of Georgia when he is forced to battle ovarian cancer on his own after two dozen doctors refuse to treat a transgender man. By the time Eads finds a physician willing to help him, the cancer is too advanced to be treated. During his final year, Eads falls in love with Lola, a transgender woman, and at the Southern Conference in Atlanta, the nation's preeminent transgender gathering, he takes her to “the prom that never was.” (A trailer of the film is embedded in the right panel of this page.)

The film won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize and a Special Audience Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

According to The New York Times, the musical of the same name will feature a folk-bluegrass score and star Annette O'Toole (The Kennedys of Massachusetts, Smallville) and Jeff McCarthy (Urinetown, Beauty and the Beast). Previews at Manhattan's CAP21's Black Box Theater are to begin October 5.