Do new songs from movie musicals get added to the shows?

They don't "automatically" get added into future stage productions. The recent tour of DREAMGIRLS made the awful mistake of taking out some of the best music from the end of the show so they could put "Listen" in it's place.

EVITA added "You Must Love Me" to the current production, but it works beautifully, as it did in the film.

Effie berates Deena and Deena grovels and they both howl at each other for while.

The "movie" songs do not automatically get added to the shows, but many community theatre productions add them (without permission) reasoning that fans of the film of GREASE will expect to hear "You're the One That I Want", "Sandy" and the title song. That fact that these songs are not properly cued in the script for the show means they must rewrite the piece (again without permission), usually lifting chunks of dialogue from the film script(Which is owned by the studio that produced the film.) Often the companies that license the shows for performance, become aware of this and even sometimes will offer the alternate songs for a fee, figuring that if these producers are going to use the songs they might as well collect some extra $ in license fees. (Yes, I am aware that many commercial productions of GREASE an SOUND OF MUSIC have now included the movie songs. This is in response to the same audience expectations. Sometimes the interpolations work..I find "You Must Love Me" a touching and worthwhile addition to EVITA. But generally they don't fit in with the stage show and seem like appendages.

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I would say that "I Have Confidence" fits into the flow of the stage version of The Sound of Music quite well and can serve as a fantastic "in one" to cover that scene shift from the Abbey to the Von Trapp house. Out of curiosity, does anybody know how that transition was handled in the original production before "I Have Confidence" existed? Did it just go from the Mother Abbess and Maria right to the Von Trapp house or was there something there to cover it?

In the original production of Sound of Music, there was a short scene "in one" with Maria walking through a corridor of the Abbey singing My Favorite Things. Sister Margaretta watches her leave then sings "How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?" and exits as the Von Trapp house is revealed.

I think it depends. For productions of Grease, for example, you can get permission very easily (my former high school is going through this now) to add those songs.

"Some Fun Now" and "Mean Green Mother" have never worked their way into a production of LITTLE SHOP that I have seen.

My guess is that "Some Fun Now" replaced "Ya Never Know," so you can't really have them both (even though they come at different points in the story). Lyrically they are too similar.

"Mean Green Mother" would just slow down the finale. Yet, in the director's cut of the film it still exisits and works. So, I don't know about that one. Although, I don't think "Mean Green Mother" was truly written for the film. I believe a version exisited before they opened Off-Broadway, it just never got put into the show.

"Better Than A Dream" was, I believe, written for the film of Bells Are Ringing and is now a part of the rental score.

I like it, but usually (it seems to me) adding songs from movie versions to stage shows is just awkward pandering to audiences who lack the imagination to accept something different from what they're familiar with.

Case in point: there's nothing intrinsically better about "Something Good" over "An Ordinary Couple," but many people prefer the former because they've seen the movie 100 times and are just used to it.

They think that they prefer it because it's a "better" song, but it's nothing more than familiarity.

I disagree that "An Ordinary Couple" is as good of a song as "Something Good." As someone who doesn't particularly care for the show itself as film or stage piece, I've heard both songs about equally, and I think "Something Good" works better, at least for me.

The reason "Mean Green Mother" has never been added to the show is not about slowing the finale- it's about the fact that the song's tempo and tongue-twisting lyrics are impossible to puppet live. The film was only able to do it by filming in slow motion.

Oooh, sorry Dar, you are incorrect! New in Town has ruled and "Something Good" has been found wanting. You only THINK you like it better, but you are wrong.

As long as "Cinema Italiano" is never added to any stage production of "Nine" the world will be a much better place.

Ahh, like pearls before swine...