Arsenic and Old Lace as a musical

[EdEval]

Posted: 8/18/19 at 8:15am

I throw out this idea to you young composers out there.  Could you make a musical out of the old play Arsenic and Old Lace?  You can have Bette Midler and Bernadette Peters as the old aunts and Nathan Lane as their brother Teddy.  I think it would be a hit.

[Rob120]

Posted: 8/18/19 at 8:36am

Richard Rodgers attempted it as a vehicle for Merman and Martin but couldn’t make it work. I’m not exactly sure where the play “sings.” It requires such a specific pace for the style of comedy that rewriting it as a musical seems like a great way to suck the air right out of it. However a first rate revival of it, perhaps directed by Jerry Zaks, could be super fun

[Dollypop]

Posted: 8/18/19 at 12:03pm

Oh, how I tried to get Jerry Herman interested in this for Lansbury, Channing and Eric Mc Cormack as Mortimer. We talked about making Mortimer a dance critic who secretly wished he was a dancing star on Broadway-- therefore opening up the plot for at least one fantasy sequence. We got so far as naming the project ELDERBERRY WINE! but Jerry wasn't totally sold in the project.