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#1

Avon Calling

I'm looking for musicals based on the works of William Shakespeare, "the Bard of Stratford-on-Avon."

So far, I have:

Kiss Me, Kate
West Side Story
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Boys From Syracuse

I know there are others, but I can't seem to think of them.
#3

re: Avon Calling

Your Own Thing
Romeo and Juliet (that awful French, then English pop musical)
#4

re: Avon Calling

There's also the Richard III sequence in "The Goodbye Girl."
#5

re: Avon Calling

Lone Star Love (based on the Merry Wives of Windsor)
#6

re: Avon Calling

And, of course, "The Lion King" is based (very) loosely on "Hamlet."

eta: And I think there was another "Twelfth Night" musical, but I can't remember what it was called.
edited again to add: Duh, that was "Your Own Thing." Which was already mentioned.

Updated On: 10/30/07 at 03:27 PM

#7

re: Avon Calling

Merry Wives, a musical based on The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and ran in Stratford from November 2006 - February 2007. It starred Simon Callow as Falstaff and Dame Judi Dench as Mistress Quickly.
#8

re: Avon Calling

ROCKABYE HAMLET
I think,
OH BROTHER

Updated On: 10/30/07 at 04:15 PM

#9

re: Avon Calling

Also Music Is and Play On! (both based on Twelfth Night)
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
#10

re: Avon Calling

Reefer Madness, if you really want to go out there.
#11

re: Avon Calling

Return to the Forbidden Planet
#12

re: Avon Calling

Swingin' the Dream, based on Midsummer Night's Dream.
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
#13

re: Avon Calling

There are parts of The Fantasticks that quote Shakespeare...adn really the whole show is a transposition of Romeo and Juliet.
"Are you sorry for civilization? I am sorry for it too." ~Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck
#14

re: Avon Calling

Thanks, everybody, and keep them coming!
#15

re: Avon Calling

Reefer Madness was based on a Shakespeare play? Really? Could you elaborate?
#16

re: Avon Calling

"Reefer Madness was based on a Shakespeare play? Really? Could you elaborate?"

"I feel...like going out and...killig people." There is a lot of killing in Shakespeare.
#17

re: Avon Calling

Illyria, yet another musical based on Twelfth Night

The Frogs is adapted from Aristophanes, but the song "Fear No More" is taken from Cymbeline (and, appropriately, sung by Shakespeare)
#18

re: Avon Calling

"Reefer Madness was based on a Shakespeare play? Really? Could you elaborate?"

Yes, we set out to do a new version of A Midsummer Nights Dream. The mechanicals became Reefer Denizens, the Nobles were transformed into clean-cut teenagers, Puck became the Lecturer, the forest was made out of marijuana, the time period was moved from Elizabethan England to 1936 and the plot was changed entirely...

j/k, I think what the original poster refers to is the song "Romeo and Juliet" and the running gag that ensues wherein the two main ingenue characters cheerfully liken themselves unto the ill-fated Shakespearean couple without having read the ending of the play.

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