Billy Joel's Broadway interest rekindled by Sting

Will Billy Joel's next big project be a return to Broadway?

"It's always in my head," said Joel, already a Tony Award winner for his work on "Movin' Out." "People do ask me if I want to write music for other shows they've written. . . . But I'd really need to do it right."

Joel's thoughts of returning to Broadway were rekindled after seeing his friend Sting's musical "The Last Ship" last month.

"I really enjoyed the show," said Joel, who even plugged the musical during his acceptance speech of the ASCAP Centennial Award on Monday. "I was talking to him about it, but it's a lot of work. He worked on it for five years - the songs, the orchestration, the story line. If I'm going to do it, I'm going have to set aside a lot of free time. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it 100 percent."

Joel said that he has composed music that could work on Broadway. And on Wednesday, he got a reminder of how his music can inspire full-blown performances, as Twyla Tharp choreographed two numbers to pay tribute to him as he received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress.

Any Broadway work, however, will likely have to wait for a while, as Joel is focusing on his record-setting residency at Madison Square Garden. MSG announced Thursday that Joel has added a June 20 show, his 64th at the venue, tying Elton John's record. Tickets for that show -- as well as for the previously announced May 28 performance -- go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday through Ticketmaster.