Books That Broadway Shows are Based on

[Jessetenny]

Posted: 4/5/17 at 8:24pm

Could I get some of the best books that Broadway shows are based off of? I read Wicked and enjoyed it, and would like to read more books that Broadway shows are based on. 

[TheGingerBreadMan]

Posted: 4/5/17 at 8:47pm

Ragtime

[disneybroadwayfan22]

Posted: 4/5/17 at 8:48pm

Matilda

CATCF

[GreasedLightning]

Posted: 4/5/17 at 8:50pm

Great Comet is based on a chapter of War & Peace. 

[poisonivy2]

Posted: 4/5/17 at 8:55pm

Edna Ferber - Showboat

The Heiress - based on Henry James' Washington Square

The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Les Miserables and Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo

Gypsy: A Memoir by Gypsy Rose Lee

Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T.S. Eliot

 

 

 

[helvizz]

Posted: 4/5/17 at 9:53pm

A gentlemans guide to love and murder was based on 'Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal'

Oliver! was based on Oliver Twist

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Gigi were based on the homonymous books

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/5/17 at 11:23pm

Tom Sawyer? And yet we forget BIG RIVER? LOL

HAMILTON (based on a history book)

FUN HOME (based on the graphic memoir of the same name)

THE KING AND I (There is some disagreement about this one, but technically, R&H were unable to get the rights to the film, ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM, and were forced to adapt Anna's memoir instead.)

THE PAJAMA GAME (I believe the source book is titled 7 1/2 CENTS)

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (THE STORY OF THE VON TRAPP FAMILY SINGERS by Maria von Trapp)

THE YEARLING (book of same name)

SOUTH PACIFIC (Michener's TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC)

THE WIZARD OF OZ (an adaptation was on Broadway decades before the film)

SARATOGA (another Edna Ferber adaptation)

 MAME (based on Dennis Patrick's AUNTIE MAME)
 

Updated On: 4/5/17 at 11:23 PM

[Drewski Vanderbilt]

Posted: 4/5/17 at 11:29pm

Cabaret

[jo]

Posted: 4/6/17 at 12:24am

Oklahoma! -- Green Grow the Lilacs ( play by Lynn Riggs)

Carousel -- Liliom (play by Ferenc Molnar)

Updated On: 4/6/17 at 12:24 AM

[jo]

Posted: 4/6/17 at 12:29am

ALWebber :

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat -- er...Biblical stories

Jesus Christ Superstar -- also inspired by the Bible

Woman in White -- novel by Wilkie Collins

Aspects of Love -- novella by David Garnett

[ggersten]

Posted: 4/6/17 at 12:50am

The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant - Damn Yankees

The Once and Future King - Camelot

Light in the Piazza - novella of same name

Urban Cowboy/Saturday Night Fever were based on films which were based on magazine articles

American Psycho - novel of same name

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Is Cabaret based more on the play I Am A Camera or the actual Isherwood stories?

As indicated Big River - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Wild Party - poem of same name

There also have been adaptations of Dracula, Little Women, Dr. Zhivago, Carrie, Big Fish

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/6/17 at 5:33am

I am a Camera, or what I was led to believe. 

Updated On: 4/6/17 at 05:33 AM

[The Other One]

Posted: 4/6/17 at 8:16am

A whole lot of them.  Adding to what's been mentioned: The Color Purple (Alice Walker) Look Homeward, Angel (Thomas Wolfe) Pipe Dream, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), Man of La Mancha (Miguel Cervantes), What Makes Sammy Run? (Budd Schulberg), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby, Pickwick and A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens), Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Grass Harp (Truman Capote), Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov), The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (Carson McCullers), Little Me (Patrick Dennis), The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (Herman Wouk)

Probably many more.  Some musicals, some plays, some flops, some hits -- all shapes and sizes.