Could La La Land be adapted into a stage musical?

The story and score is beautiful on film, but wouldn't hold up onstage. The best parts of the film couldn't be replicated onstage.

Don't think it would work anywhere near as well. The most impressive things about the movie would be difficult to impossible to reenact on stage. But if it did happen, I disagree about them needing to get Emma Stone. Plenty of theatre actresses who could do that role as well if not better. I think Gosling's old-Hollywood style of charisma would be harder to replace.

Updated On: 1/6/17 at 08:37 AM

The only good things about this movie are specific to the fillmmaking and the presence of Emma Stone.

I don't think so. Not without a major re-thinking.

I enjoyed the film but almost in spite of it being a musical. I ultimately found the story sweet and moving, but other than the Audition sequence, I didn't feel like it really use a traditional musical theatre structure to tell the story through song. Most of the heavy lifting was left to the non singing dramatic scenes with the musical numbers operating as sort of background fantasy. This was of course by design - though I thought the movie would have been stronger if they had really committed to the musical concept and musicalized more dramatic moments.

I suppose this is something that could be potentially brought out in a stage musical, but the whole thing is an homage to film musicals, so I think that would be lost in translation as well.

Updated On: 1/6/17 at 10:33 AM

They'd have to write a more interesting story and a full score if they ever wanted to do it. I'm sure there's been interest, but I don't think it would work at all. It's a tribute to old-school movie musicals with a wisp of a plot- putting it on stage would only take away what it is.

wonderfulwizard11 said: "They'd have to write a more interesting story and a full score if they ever wanted to do it. I'm sure there's been interest, but I don't think it would work at all. It's a tribute to old-school movie musicals with a wisp of a plot- putting it on stage would only take away what it is."

Yup. All of this. I think you could take the bare bones idea of the plot and some of the songs but compared to other properties, this one would be very difficult to just plop on stage. There's potential for a more interesting story if you just had a tighter script and better writing though I don't know if it would ever be anything remarkable.

after seeing this a second and third time i actually think a stage version could work better than i thought after the first time i saw it. i think it could really be a fantastic dance-heavy show starring someone like Tony Yazbeck and Misty Copeland. I thought the dancing was more essential to the film overall than the singing was.

I feel it would work despite the absence of the beautiful cinematography of the film. The story is good, songs are also very good but will need a few more. Dancing scenes could be equally effective if not better and the singing would definitely be better. The big challenge is to find two actors with the same chemistry.

Interesting thought. I'm not hugely familiar with Hugh Sheridan, but seen in the light of your idea, this clip of him from that quirky 2015 opera miniseries 'The Divorce' almost seems like a parody of Sebastian's more pretentious moments :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfU_SKrgr5I

(Getting even more off-topic, if anyone cares, the miniseries itself is mildly amusing though very inconsequential; cast recording here: https://open.spotify.com/album/6PmCF7CG8oA6Kq7THrSCJu)

I think that many scenes actually benefit from being on stage, they can do much more with the music, have better singers, and scenes like "Lovely Night Dance" can really work in theatre with the right setting, lighting etc. Theatre is per definition the perfect place to re-create this fantasy world.

Of course they woud need additional songs and approach certain scenes differently but there is definitely potential.

Updated On: 3/5/17 at 06:12 AM