What's happening to Musical Theater Writers? (adapters)

[goodmanK]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 10:46am

It is just so sad to see, almost every day, an announcement about movies/TV Shows being turned into musicals. Adams Family, Spider Man, Sleepless in Seattle, Catch Me If You Can, Dirty Dancing.. the list goes on and on. When will we ever get a great, original musical, possibly even one based on a book or an idea even. Yes, Story Of My Life didn't make it, but that is an off Broadway. I'm talking a true, full, musical. Atleast Wicked is somewhat traditional in its creation. - just not a hollywood movie. It sadens me that writers are not really writing, but just adapting material now.

No need for snide remarks, thought?...

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 11:17am

May favorite musical of all times, The Most Happy Fella, is an adaptation, so I don't have a problem with writers not coming up with original ideas at all.

The Light in the Piazza, another favorite, was a movie turned musical, as was (I believe) A Catered Affair.

I don't it has anything to do with something being adapted vs. original.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 11:19am

HAPPINESS (currently at the Mitzi Newhouse) is completely original and it is a great show!!

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 11:19am

Wasn't even Sweeney Todd adapted from a play?

[Gary Indiana]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 11:24am

I thought this as soon as I saw the announcement about the Sleepless in Seattle musical. It frustrates me too, but most classic musicals were based on other sources too. Guys & Dolls was based on short stories, Sound of Music and Gypsy were based on memoirs, Annie and L'il Abner on comic strips, South Pacific, How to Succeed and Oliver on novels, Hello Dolly!, Cabaret, Chicago and Sweeney Todd on plays, etc. I think that it was more natural in the past to go to books for source material, but now our culture is more focused on movies than on books, so writers go to movies for ideas for their musicals. It's just a symptom of our changing culture. That being said, I would love to see more new musicals that aren't based on movies.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 11:42am

writers are not really writing, but just adapting material now.

Actually, that's a load of hooey.

Very few musicals are entirely "original." Almost all the great ones (if not all) were adapted from something else.

[Weez]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 11:49am

Good GOD. Right! I'm getting my iPod out and going through the shows I have on there:

110 in the Shade - based on a play
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee - original, but began life as a play
Aida - based on an opera
Assassins - original, based on real people
Avenue Q - original, but a VERY faithful parody
Bare: A Pop Opera - original, but structured around Romeo & Juliet
Billy Elliot - based on a film
The Boy from Oz - jukebox, and based on a real person
Cabaret - based on a play
Camelot - based on existing stories
Camp Rock - original
Capeman - based on a real person
Caroline, or Change - original
City of Angels - original
The Civil War - original, based on historical events
Company - original based on plays; thanks, PJ
Curtains - original
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - based on a film
The Drowsy Chaperone - original
Evil Dead: the Musical - based on a film
Evita - based on a real person
Fiddler on the Roof - based on a book
The Fix - original
Floyd Collins - based on a real person
Follies - original
The Frogs - based on a play
The Full Monty - based on a film
Godspell - based on the freakin' Bible
Grey Gardens - based on real people
Hairspray - based on a film
In the Heights - original
Into the Woods - original, although heavily based on existing stories
Jekyll and Hyde - based on a book
Jesus Christ Superstar - based on the freakin' Bible
Just So - based on a book
The King and I - based on real people
Kiss of the Spider Woman - based on a book
The Last Five Years - original
Les Miserables - based on a book
The Light in the Piazza - based on a book
Man of La Mancha - based on a book
Merrily We Roll Along - original
My Fair Lady - based on a play
Oklahoma! - based on a play
Parade - based on a real person
Paris - based on an existing legend
Passion - based on a film
The Producers - based on a film
Ragtime - based on a book
Rent - based on an opera
The Scarlet Pimpernel - based on a book
The Secret Garden - based on a book
South Pacific - based on a book
Spring Awakening - based on a play
Sunday in the Park with George - original, although heavily influenced by a painting
Sweeney Todd - based on a play
Tarzan - based on a movie
Title of Show - original
Urinetown - original
The Wedding Singer - based on a film
West Side Story - based on a play
Wicked - based on a book
You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown - based on a comic strip

So that's (approximately*) 63 musicals, 20 19 of which I count as mostly original. And that's far more than I was expecting. How is a wholly original musical better than something based on an existing commodity? You think Camp Rock is better than West Side Story? The Civil War better than Les Miserables? Hell, you think Merrily We Roll Along is better than Sweeney Todd?

*it's near enough to home time for me not to care about accurate counting anymore

Will people please get the hell over themselves and stop lamenting the "good old days" of "OMG TOTALLY ORIGINAL MUSICALS, NOT LIKE NOW!"?! Not one of the original musicals on my iPod (and I'm glad I only have 8GB XD) dates any earlier than the '70s, most have come about within my lifetime, and a great deal of them are pretty darn new. :P

Updated On: 3/3/09 at 11:49 AM

[Taryn]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 11:59am

The Light in the Piazza, another favorite, was a movie turned musical, as was (I believe) A Catered Affair.

Although there is a movie adaptation of The Light in the Piazza, the musical was based on the original book.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:00pm

You have Company down as an original, but it was actually based on 11 interconnected one-act plays that playwright George Furth wrote for actress Kim Stanley.

She asked her friend actor Anthony Perkins to direct them and he asked his friend composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim what he thought of them, and Sondheim, in turn, asked his friend producer Hal Prince what HE thought of them.

Hal told Steve he should collaborate with George Furth and turn the 11 plays into a musical.

Updated On: 3/3/09 at 12:00 PM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:08pm

Thanks Taryn. I wasn't aware that Piazza was also a book before the movie and subsequent musical.

[musicalkid]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:20pm

WHy don't they adapt something decent thoug?!

i don't have a problem with adaptations. it's well known most musicals are adapted from something, and i believe that Lehman Engel even suggested that BMI writers stick to adapting rather than making stories up...

i actually expect some of the new adaptations like addams family et al.

but why SPIDERMAN? and sleepless in seattle is a bit too blah in my opinion. and so on.

[goodmanK]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:36pm

Let's not get confused...adapting from a hollywood movie is what I'm really talking about here.Dirty Dancing is a perfect example of how a movie is literally taken off of the tube and put on a stage.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:38pm

Actually, the musical version of LitP did base some things off of the movie.

[goodmanK]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:39pm

Adaptations of novels such as Les Miserables, or even a play turned musical is a bit more artistic in my eyes. I realize Broadway is now trying to appeal to an MTV crowd but we gotta get another true book musical out there soon..or im gonna freak lol

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:45pm

sleepless in seattle is a bit too blah in my opinion

So you might have said about "The Fourposter." (Look it up.)

Almost any idea can sound terrible before it's written.

The problem is not with the writers. It's not even with the producers. It's with the culture. Someone just has to come around and break the mold.

But remember that Oscar Hammerstein was a writer of many, many American adaptations of German and Viennese operettas--most of which were "a bit too blah"--before he pioneered contemporary musical drama.

Composers and lyricists and bookwriters need training grounds.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:51pm

Why blame the writers?

There's never a shortage of creativity, only a shortage of financial risk-taking.

[singinsilly]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 12:52pm

Depending on the day, I go both ways. I would LOVE to see something not so mainstream (i.e. spiderman, shrek, sleepless) While I understand Broadway needs to bring in money, it seems like these adaptations are taking over. (even though they may be really good lol)

[squeakyfromme82]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 1:22pm

I agree with PalJoey and Scarywarhol. It's definitely culture and financial risk taking to blame for that. All the young musical writers whose work I enjoy do original works not based on movies, etc. Joe Iconis, Kerrigan & Lowdermilk, Ferguson & Jamail, sometimes Pasek & Paul-- they all had their own stuff going on. They just need to find people willing to take the risk on it.

[Biff AKA Levi]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 1:45pm

A Catered Affair was based on The Catered Affair. I've seen both, and Harvey practically started from scratch on his adaptation.

You can't compare the two. One is good. One is bad.

(I'll let you decide which one I think is which.)

[InfiniteTheaterFrenzy]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 1:48pm

In the 2008- 2009 season, how many of the new musicals that opened were preceded by movies and presumably capitalized on the movie’s popularity?
4/10
YES- White Christmas, Billy Elliot, 9 to 5, Shrek
NO- [title of show], Story of My Life, Rock Of Ages, Next to Normal, 13, Tale Of Two Cities

Going back, in the 1992- 1993 season, how many of the new musicals that opened were preceded by movies and presumably capitalized on the movie’s popularity?
4/7
YES- Goodbye Girl, The Who’s Tommy, My Favorite Year, Kiss of the Spider Woman
NO- Ain’t Broadway Grand, Blood Brothers, Anna Karenina

Even farther back, how many musicals were made of movies approximately 40 years ago, in the 1969- 1970 season?
12 musicals opened
7/12
YES- Applause, Georgy, Jimmy, La Strada, Gantry, Purlie, Look To The Lillies
NO- Oh Calcutta, Buck White, Coco, Blood Red Roses, Minnie’s Boys

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 1:59pm

Minnie's Boys may have been an "original," but it capitalized on the popularity of the Marx Brothers' movies.

Or, rather, it tried to.

[TheCharleston]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 2:17pm

GOODMAN - there are hundreds and hundreds of "original" musicals written every year. Not many producers want to take the risk, though.

Also... don't be so quick to judge the titles/material/etc. It's all about the execution.

Adaptions = more commercialism. And while I am not a fan (and am more of an artsy fartsy guy), it means more mainstream appeal and financial success for Broadway.

In this economy, be grateful that investors are still pumping in dollars to put a musical in New York. So I will pass on complaining.

I don't see a problem with it...

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 3:27pm

While it does in fact seem like more musicals are based on movies these days than on books and plays, I think this merely represents a shift in our broader culture away from books and plays.

Remember that audiences like characters they already know, and musical theater writers have enough to deal with without creating characters and situations out of wholecloth.

"Finian's Rainbow" used to be cited as being "the only truly original musical" of the Golden Age, but with "Urinetown," "Avenue Q" and "The Drowsy Chaperone" we have original musicals, albeit with a post-modern take on our shared consciousness of musicals, TV shows and recordings, respectively.

The most "disturbing" trend these days is the "adaptation" of pop song collections into musicals.

The second most "disturbing" trend is the adaptation of movie MUSICALS into stage musicals. There is absolutely nothing wrong with treating a film script as a literary source. And adding lots of new songs to a movie score is at least creative (think "Meet Me in St. Louis.") But merely mounting a musical "live on stage" without rethinking the role of music in the theatrical structure (just plopping in a few additional ditties) is a little artistically bereft, to be frank. "Singing in the Rain," "Gigi" and "State Fair" come to mind.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 3:35pm

How about XANADU. That was based on a film, but it had a completely original exclusive-to-Broadway concept, almost parodying the film.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 3/3/09 at 3:45pm

"Xanadu" is an interesting case, isnt' it? And don't get me wrong, because I enjoyed it very much and think it is quite clever and fun.

So, it put a twist on a movie musical, somewhat justifying its tranformation into a stage musical. And its score is the film's score, plus...........the Olivia Newton-John/Jeff Lynne pop catalog? One could argue that it helps the satiric tone to do so, but wouln't it have been exciting if ELO had written new songs in the style of their film score?

Perhaps that was a missed opportunity, done out of deference to the songbook musical craze. Hmmmmmmmm. Like I said, an interesting case. Good question.