Will Broadway ever bring back originally written shows?

[Mazzy061]

Posted: 1/9/13 at 10:31pm

Seriously, I love the movie phase but... I kinda can't wait for something original as well. Not all of broadway is movie, but from what I've been seeing... it's movie into musical.

[Jon]

Posted: 1/9/13 at 10:52pm

Have you heard of Book of Mormon?

[Taryn]

Posted: 1/9/13 at 10:53pm

Will people ever stop whining about it?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/9/13 at 10:57pm

Since at least the 1920s, Broadway musicals have usually been adapted from works from other media. (There are plenty of exceptions, of course.) Doing so helps to "pre-sell" the adaptation because the public already knows the source material.

Now that fewer people read and hit straight plays are rare, movies are the only medium that gets enough attention to make an adaptation salable. (Also TV, of course, but adapting TV shows into Broadway musicals seems to pose its own problems.)

So, yes and yes. Yes, there will be original musicals. And, yes, many if not most commercial musicals will be adapted from films (unless they start adapting them from video games).

IMO, obviously, since I don't own a crystal ball.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 1/9/13 at 11:06pm

Thread jack for a moment, was there ever a Topper muscial considered?

[SNAFU]

Posted: 1/9/13 at 11:06pm

Thread jack for a moment, was there ever a Topper muscial considered?

[emilyfaye48]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 12:18am

I agree! Let's go back to the good ol' days when musicals had no source material whatsoever!

[NoName3]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 12:37am

A very brief Google search shows at least two musical versions of Topper done regionally that don't seem to have had much of an afterlife.

I love the sublime Blithe Spirit but I just can't consider that it wasn't heavily inspired by Topper. The original 1937 film with Cary Grant and Constance Bennett had been a huge hit and Coward wrote his play just 3 or 4 years later. (I certainly am not implying it was a rip-off but the closeness in time and the similar plot elements and tone and are too much to be just coincidence.) So High Spirits, the musical version of Coward's work, is semi-close to the bill.

And, vaguely related, Sondheim wrote 11 episodes of the wonderful 1950's TV version.





Updated On: 1/10/13 at 12:37 AM

[ratherbewhaling]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 12:55am

People point to book of mormon as an example of this, but if it was the exact same show except without the star power and "cool factor" of the South Park guys, I'm don't think it would be the success that it is

[Johnnycantdecide]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 12:56am

Next to Normal, anyone?

[Johnnycantdecide]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 12:59am

Also in the last 20 years or so,
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,
The Last Five Years (off Broadway),
Chess (a bit farther back),
Passing Strange,
and Taboo.

[Almira]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 1:18am

Thread jack for a moment, was there ever a Topper muscial considered?

Over the years I've heard of two "considerations" when it comes to TOPPER.

1) A musical version interpolating Cole Porter songs.

2) A musical version with an original score by Jerry Herman.

Can't remember if Herman actually wanted to do it, or whether it was something he was approached to do, or whether it was wishful thinking. Either way, it clearly never happened.

But TOPPER seems IDEAL source material for Herman. All of Herman's successful shows have a "free-spirit vs. conservative" theme, which TOPPER definitely has. TOPPER even has a spot for Herman's requisite "live life" song... only it this case the singer can literally mean live life!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 1:41am

You do know this is Quiche2 with his screen name de jour, right?

[Wynbish]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 1:49am

Catfish!

[broadwayfreak4]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 3:29am

Bombshell, if it eventually becomes one.

[GatorNY]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 7:31am

There's a whole song about this in [title of show]. It's pretty funny.
An Original Musical

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 7:48am

You want one, write one.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 7:53am

I don't see how the road has any say in what happens on it.

[sondhead]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 9:56am

I don't see why original musicals are any better than those adapted, at least in their conception. There are poorly written movie adaptations, sure, but there are extremely poor original musicals as well. And let's remember that Promises, Promises; Sweet Charity; A Little Night Music; Little Shop of Horrors; Nine; Passion are all based on movies. Perhaps most importantly, MOST of the canon of good musicals throughout the artforms history are in fact adaptations and not fully original, and this shouldn't and doesn't diminish their achievement in any way.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 10:05am

I'm actually surprised more people haven't started producing Original Musicals. Look at the hits from the past few seasons. Memphis. Book of Mormon. The Drowsy Chaperone. Etc. They were all hits, and did not come from any sort of recognizable source material.

And I think you're wrong about Book of Mormon. It already has a title that attracts attention. It got glorious reviews, and amazing word-of-mouth. And there was no 'star power' when the show opened. No one knew who those two guys were.

Posted: 1/10/13 at 10:12am

"Original" musicals aren't any better or worse than adapted ones- whether the source be a painting, a poem or a video game. But bitching about lack of originality in musicals is easy and people who do it think it makes them look erudite.

[finebydesign]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 10:27am

"I'm actually surprised more people haven't started producing Original Musicals."

To me it always seems to point to the way musicals are made. Many many many times composer/lyricist teams go off and write music in the absence of a book writer. I think "In the Heights" was put together this way. Sure "song cycles" can evolve into shows, but let's face it, if you don't have a story, you don't have nothing.

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 1:46pm

I think the question should be when did we go from saying "oh god, another musical based on a movie?" to "i think this and this and this and this should be a musical!"

[newintown]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 3:37pm

I think that movies can be a perfectly valid source for musical adaptation, as long as those adapting it aren't merely trying to cash in on a film's popularity by plopping it on stage relatively unchanged, with some pedestrian songs plugged in here and there (as in Legally Blonde, 9 to 5, Shrek, etc.).

The best adaptations have their own integrity as significantly different entities that surpass their source material.

[finebydesign]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 4:25pm

Not a huge fan of Legally Blonde, but that source material was perfect for a musical. The whole idea sings, the lead has a great hero story, the premise is hilarious. It's just a great animal to work with. Not saying it was a great piece of anything, but the story is as strong.