Clue the movie.... someone needs to adapt it.

[Call_me_jorge]

I was rewatching the film again recently, and I just can’t get out of my head how much it needs to be a musical. Who would be your dream creative team and cast?
All I ask is Gavin Creel as Mr. Green

[CATSNYrevival]

David Yazbeck. I remember when I heard the Overture for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels I thought this is what I hear in my head when I imagine a Clue musical.

[quizking101]

A quick Google search will indicate that it's been done...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clue_(musical)

[Call_me_jorge]

quizking101 said: "A quick Google search will indicate that it's been done...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clue_(musical)"

If you read that Wikipedia page, you’d understand that version is not based off the movie...

[AlfredDrakeII]

Clue: On Stage premiered at Bucks County Playhouse just last year. It was a huge hit, featuring Sally Struthers and Erin Dilly among others.

Google is your friend.

[darquegk]

A play with music based on the film premiered last year and is currently licensed. It will soon totally replace the musical if there’s any justice in the world.

[dramamama611]

It has live music to be be played - rather like movies used to WAAAY back.  (It's not, for example, like Peter and Starcatchers is a "play with music".)   BTW....it's CRAZY expensive to license.  I forget what it is, but I inquired a few months ago.  (I'll see if I still have the email.)   I have the script, it's cute.

 

Since the two versions are held by different licensing companies (to the best of my knowledge) one will never replace the other.

 

[CATSNYrevival]

I'd still like a musical based on the movie. Not a play with music.

[Loopin’theloop]

Dramamama611

Who licenses the new play version?

[dramamama611]

Broadway Licensing.

[Deena Jones]

It’s playing at the Cape Playhouse now, directed by Hunter Foster

[BuddyStarr]

Yes, Clue: the Musical is alive but not well.  I did this show a long time ago.  It is horrible with terrible songs "Everyday Devices"???????  I played Mr. Green, ugh, the maid was a man in drag.  It is not a good show.

[robskynyc]

No Madeline = No Clue!

[trentsketch]

I was just working on a production of that other Clue musical. I'm familiar with what the show was originally. They have revised it significantly. The awful recitative segments for Mr. Body are spoken monologues now and it makes a big difference. The music isn't great, but the show is much quicker to get through without so much unnecessarily sung material. 

The newer version adapted from the movie is what you'd expect. Broadway Licensing actually has free online perusals so you can read the book yourself if your interested (it's a branch off company from Playscripts that almost always does the same). It is also, as Dramamama said, quite expensive to license. It's largely the film script reformatted for the stage.

[darquegk]

I wouldn't hold the play's closeness to the film against it: the film is one of the latest of the great farces, and always felt more stagey and theatrical than cinematic.

[Kad]

So much of what makes the film work is the absolute and irreplaceable genius perfection of the cast. While the screenplay itself is good fun, it's the actors who make it work.

(to say nothing of moments like "Flames on the side of my face...", which were totally improvised).

[Deena Jones]

https://capeplayhouse.com/production/clue-on-stage/

[Loopin’theloop]

dramamama611 said: "Broadway Licensing. "

Thank you 

[trentsketch]

darquegk said: "I wouldn't hold the play's closeness to the film against it: the film is one of the latest of the great farces, and always felt more stagey and theatrical than cinematic."

Agreed. The film is wonderful. The play has potential if the resources are available to stage it. There are a lot more scenes than your average modern play and quite a few settings for something meant to be performed with no intermission. But that's a challenge for the productions to figure out. The script is still funny on page.

[John Adams]

trentsketch said: "It is also, as Dramamama said, quite expensive to license. It's largely the film script reformatted for the stage."

I wonder if the fees are so high because you'd have to pay compensation to both Hasbro and the creators of the film, as well as to those who created the stage version...?

 

[CATSNYrevival]

trentsketch said: "The script is still funny on page."

Is it? I read the first few pages and was not impressed with the added material from Hunter Foster and company. Maybe I've just seen the movie way too many times but some of the added text seems to depart a great deal from the specific brand of comedy in the film. I'd like to see how it plays on stage.

[darquegk]

I feel the same way about most of Foster's newly-written bits and pieces in his fairly well-acclaimed annual Rocky Horror. Many of them are quite funny, but they're not funny in the same (admittedly dubious) way the rest of the show is.