I can't say I've read any lately... I know one BWW user is toying with the idea of a Tuck Everlasting musical.
I dream of seeing 'Trainspotting' turned into a musical someday.
Trainspotting could be weirdly good
Tuck Everlasting?! YAY! Wonderful idea!
There is this book called 1916 by Morgan Llwelyn and I think, if done properly, it could be really good.
Let's have us another Little Women musical.
My friend said Memoirs of Geisha may be good...I could see that although I would never have thought so originally myself.
How about Out of Africa?
Sister Carrie, it would be great!
I think that The Giver could be interesting
I'm not 100% sure if this could work as a musical but I've felt for years that MM Kaye's Ordinary Princess could be adapted for stage or screen. There is no real "bad guy" but I've always found it to be a beautiful novel.
My Sister's Keeper could be made into a good chamber musical, with a minimalist set and lots of power ballads.
Seems like everyone's doing that lately though..
There's a novel called "The Ballad of Typhoid Mary" by J.F. Federspeigel that I "worked" on for a while, but what I was coming up with was "Sweeney Todd" in drag.
But, it's a beautiful, sad, sweet story.
Something like this has been said before, but Anastacia (sp?) needs to be made into a STAGE musical!
This sounds strange but I could see "The Virgin Suicides" being a musical, along with "The Catcher in the Rye".
There's this really long Victor Hugo novel, it's about some dude named John and like, some French Revolution.
I don't think they could make it into a musical though, at least not a good one.
Broadway Star Joined: 8/1/07
I wanted to write a Memoirs of a Geisha musical. Unfortunately, I only ever wrote one song. Lame.
Le Grand Meaulness
The Lovely bones
morbid
and genius
I think Elle Enchanted has potential.
Will it happen? Probably not.
"The Widow of the South"
"The Great Gatsby"
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Kitchen God's Wife
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/25/05
I've always said that Anthem would make a very strange, but good opera or musical.
The Life and Loves of a She Devil
Pride and Prejudice
I would be very interested in seeing either Sondheim, LaChuisa, or Guettal tackle "Point, Counterpoint" by Huxley.
I second "The Great Gatsby."
maybe "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret".
She-Devil would be cool...
The one I've always had in the back of my mind, but will never lift a finger to pursue, is Ray Bradbury's"Something Wicked This Way Comes."
Well, the Great Gatsby was already made into an opera that premiered at the Met a few years ago, but it would also make a good musical I would think.
As for other books that would make a good musical, it's always hard to tell. Books when read hardly seem like they can sing right off the page, and clearly they were not originally intended to do so. When you read Ragtime by Doctrow, it doesn't quite scream MUSICAL!!! but when you see the show, you understand how it works out.
Yes, there are some books that seem to lend themselves easily to musicalization, but it's really the matter of how the creators are able to take a pre-existing story, and create a compelling piece of work that's their own, but also pays respect to the original author. This in itself is very difficult.
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