"Fix" a musical by giving it a new team — Page 2

"Big",  a musical about the tension between the freedoms of youth and the wisdom of age, should perhaps have had a writing team with a median age under fifty.

Charlie and The Chocolate factory, with a snappy new score by Tim Minchin. Set by Derek McLane who can do some DBH/Moulin Rogue type of crazy set work to help remedy what we got in 2017.

Maybe Alex Timbers or Christopher Gatelli direct? Someone who knows all sorts of theatrical lushness and visual indulgence.

And a new book by, I don’t know, someone. Anyone.

Please.

Updated On: 4/29/26 at 01:30 AM

DiscoCrows said: "Charlie and The Chocolate factory, with a snappy new score by Tim Minchin. Set by Derek McLane who can do some DBH/Moulin Rogue type of crazy set work to help remedy what we got in 2017.

Maybe Alex Timbers or Christopher Gatelli direct? Someone who knows all sorts of theatrical lushness and visual indulgence.

And a new book by, I don’t know, someone. Anyone.

Please."

It was weaker than Matilda, but I had the same thought about Malloy when I saw The Witches. The way both him and Minchin are able to mine the genuine fear under Dahl's whimsy in a way that feels effortless and canny, versus the constant flop sweat that plagued Charlie's score. Whether either would be willing to share space with the Newley/Bricusse songs, though...

edit: a Malloy Tales of the Unexpected would slap

Updated On: 4/29/26 at 11:33 AM

Doubtfire.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

My very real, not-so-hypothetical one is that I've spent the last ten years trying to decipher the rights to Pokemon the Musical: Gotta Catch 'Em Live. With a new libretto and a few more songs from the franchise's back catalogue, I genuinely believe it would print money in licensing like SpongeBob does, as a "make your own magic theatrical spectacle" type show with multigenerational appeal.

Unfortunately, the original script writer (a soap opera writer with no connection to Nintendo or the Pokemon franchise) passed away a few years ago, the composer is a music exec who is intentionally unreachable, and the rights to any multimedia associated with the franchise's first decade in America got stuck in a VERY messy legal divorce between the three rights-holding companies at the time.