Profile for Hey, Zelda!

Kad said: "The longer a show is in development, the more likely that more cooks start getting involved- particularly producers who want to keep their investors happy."

Or families and/or intellectual property rights holders.

Its quality notwithstanding, I can imagine the thorny legal issues surrounding Paradise Square would affect its chances at a revival, to say nothing of licensing.

QueenAlice said: "Has Will Butler talked at all about his process creating the songs for the show? I'd love to read any interview that people are aware of. I would 'guess' that he wrote the songs in their entirety first and they selected the desired building block pieces of eachto show the evolution of the songs as is relative to the script, but of course I could be completely wrong."

From Vulture: How to Write a Fake Rock Song

 

Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera

If not a musical, then some sort of tricked-out semi-narrative live staging.

cb981 said: "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel"

This one kinda sorta happened. Amanda Palmer from the Dresden Dolls went back to her high school to help stage an adaptation of Aeroplane called With the Needle That Sings in Her Heart, combining the album with elements of Anne Frank's internment at Bergen-Belsen. And there's video of it. Also, an NPR article about it.

To think that in seventy years (or whenever depending on what becomes of copyright law), Here We Are could very well become Sondheim's Turandot.

CD release on May 17th, per Nonesuch Records's Bandcamp.

An orchestral suite also dropped recently, apparently.

KevinKlawitter said: "Preview of "Bishop's Song" included in NYT Cast Album Roundup

Unfortunately I can't listen because it's behind a paywall."

Boo-yeah.

Chicago Tribune: Column: ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ composer Adam Guettel had the challenge of putting addiction to music

Includes an aside about Guettel's aborted Princess Bride musical:
 

darquegk said: "Those have been in the licensed production since summer 2022. I was in a production that specifically recruited two Asian men, only to discover that they didn't have roles for them other than Sailor/Ensemble when the new scripts came in.

The one-liners the kids Spit and Dippy now get are BAD. But at least they're not both bad and racist!"

All these changes, and yet "The Gypsy In Me" remains in place.

MrsSallyAdams said: "I saw Porchlight Theatre's production ofAnything Goesin Chicago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Meghan Murphy's Reno brought back the vaudeville vulgarity that I've missedfrom others in the role.

I was pleased by the book rewrites which replace the caricatured Chinese missionaries with two bratty kids and disguise Reno as a Hollywood actress rather than a Chinese maiden. These revisions are cited on the Tams Whitmark website but don't appear to have been used in the Sutton Foster production. Does anyone know when they were first introduced?

Anything Goes (2022 Revision) | Concord Theatricals"

Press materials suggest this is the first production to incorporate these revisions.

Here's Patrick Wilson joining Costello on the title song.

Hey, Zelda! said: "ColorTheHours048 said: "...is this Sarah Ruhl’s first book for a musical? I’ve always found her plays intriguing - if not always successful - but usually a little shaggy, so it’ll be interesting to see her adapt a preexisting work that isn’t, y’know, a Greek myth."

She was working with Elvis Costello on a musical version of A Face in the Crowd, but who knows the status on that one."

We have a status: opening at the Young Vic in London this fall.

 

Eilish write a musical? Hell yeah.

Fast track to Broadway, though? Why not Hadestown it? That is, she finds a story she can feel comfortable with working on for a few years, put together a DIY thing, try on the musicals-writer hat and sees if she likes it.

Alex Kulak2 said: "Hey, Zelda! said: "ColorTheHours048 said: "[Ruhl] also wrote book an lyrics for a musical based on her play Melancholy Play, with music by Todd Almond, but I've never heard anything from it."

I'd actually forgotten about that one--thanks for jogging my memory!

Laura Benanti and Todd Almond singing a selection from Melancholy Play

 

ColorTheHours048 said: "...is this Sarah Ruhl’s first book for a musical? I’ve always found her plays intriguing - if not always successful - but usually a little shaggy, so it’ll be interesting to see her adapt a preexisting work that isn’t, y’know, a Greek myth."

She was working with Elvis Costello on a musical version of A Face in the Crowd, but who knows the status on that one.

Hot off the press:

‘Beauty and the Beast’ musical will launch new tour in Chicago [in July 2025; Minneapolis to follow]

kdogg36 said: "Matt Rogers said: "Tony voters live pretentious atonal stuff like this."

The wordatonalhas a precise meaning in music, and no song inThe Days of Wine and Rosesis atonal, as far as I am aware."

"Arioso", perhaps?

jimmycurry01 said: "I recently saw the original version with Piper Laurie. Nothing about that screamed "make this into a musical!" I am still curious about this, though. It just seems like such an odd choice."

Guettel has been candid about his issues with addiction, so, at the very least, something in Days resonated with him strongly enough to keep it alive for nearly twenty years.

More thoughts on BOOP! from the Chicago Tribune, this time from film critic Michael Phillips. Includes a few thoughts on the character's origins and an interview with Mark Fleischer, the grandson of Max and probable muscle behind the musical.