I can just imagian songs
Old Major Dies
Lets change the commandments
Snowball Flees
Oh please spare me. . . not only is it one of the worst books ever written, it would be the worst musical ever thought of.
Jerry Herman Meets Conceptual theater conceit:
Everyone crawls around on all fours throughout the entire show until the very end when the pigs rise up and do a rousing tap ballet. Showgirls come from the wings demonstrating the pig's full assimilation into the (musical theater) world.
Disney Version:
Wearing enormous, back problem inducing costumes, actors twitter about the stage singing inane songs. Entire show is directed to look at the world from the animal's point of view. The barn becomes an enormous place where animals, for some reason, conduct impressive acrobatics. Plot is reworked. No longer fascist parable, but rather story of one pig who dreamed of equality with humans, and leads the animal race to it. Children flock.
John Doyle version:
Actors sit in chairs on levels. Their clothing only barely suggests what animals they might be. They play their own instruments. They mostly talk without looking at each other in thinly veiled metaphors. At the end, the pigs get the other actors to play their instruments for them and haughtily ascend to a higher level. The whole thing is possibly a drug induced fantasy. Nobody really understands why. Lauded as genius.
I heard the John Doyle version premieres next year in the UK.
God, I hated this book and I think it would be a horrible musical
I just see it as such a great drama and I think it could be very poignant. And I would just love in the begininning the pigs being fully clothed as pigs, but aslowly loosing their pig qualities and finally becoming human.
I wanna make it happen.
I think if this were turned into a musical it would be truly awful. I can just picture the barnyard set with authentic animal dung and hay everywhere, complete with random animal sounds in the background. Maybe Snowball could sing a huge emotional song to convince the animals of his ideas. I think Roninjoey's idea of the pigs doing a tap dance at the end to show their full assimilation into humans is interesting.
Yeah........an Animal Farm musical would be pretty bad.
I think that is unfair to say. Not all musicals have to be bright and glitzy. I am thinking more of a Sondheim sound. Like Sweeney Todd meets Light in the Piazza. I just see it.
Animal Farm
the Musical
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Let's discuss this. Why do you not like the idea?
I loved the book, but I just can't see it as a musical. Hmm.
Swing Joined: 12/31/69
Maybe if the characters weren't all animals.....
Which means the story would have to be tweaked....
Which means the title would be changed.....
So no. No, not really.
Play It Cool, LOL.
Seriously. I laughed out loud.
I can see the characters as animals. Very abstract animals, but still.
It is one of the greatest novel's ever written, but I think that singing animals is just to Disney.
I love the movie Animal Farm, but I cant see it being a broadway musical.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/19/06
Of course it could be a broadway musical, Harvey Fierstein as Napoleon and so on. Let's cast it! Anyone for Boxer?
Broadway Star Joined: 9/15/04
This already exists, they did it at my school this past year. http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/catalogdetail.cfm?listcode=A06
I believe it was in London at some point.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/8/04
Love this book.
It could be quite interesting as an allegorical musical.
Julie Taymor could d it.
Anyone that goes upon two legs is an enemy. Anyone that goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
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