Historical people/moments you want to see in a musical

Maybe this is already out there, but Iving Berlin's live was pretty interesting. I think an autobiographical "jukebox musical" about him, in the same vein perhaps as Beautiful or Jersey Boys could be fascinating.

And thinking a bit more out of the box, has there ever been a musical about a person behind one of the big scientific discoveries? Politics seems to be covered a lot, but many of the brilliant scientists were such weird people (side effect of being brilliant I guess), and sometimes also gifted musicians... I'm thinking along the lines of Einstein, Marie Curie, Newton. This guys had big ideas and big vision so their personalities and stories could potentially lend itself to be musicalized...

_IrisTInkerbell said: "Maybe this is already out there, but Iving Berlin's live was pretty interesting. I think an autobiographical "jukebox musical" about him, in the same vein perhaps as Beautiful or Jersey Boys could be fascinating."



There is a Berlin revue called The Melody Lingers On that uses his life as a framework to get from song to song. I worked on a production back in 2002, so I don't remember if the songs were presented in completely chronological order, but the one thing that has stuck with me is that Act 1 closes with a pretty somber rendition of "Blue Skies" (which was written for his first daughter when she was born in 1926) as Irving Berlin talks about going into a depression after his only son died in infancy on Christmas Day of 1928.

Chinese railroad workers

The Greenwich time lady: http://www.futilitycloset.com/2016/06/06/podcast-episode-108-greenwich-time-lady/

The making of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

I'd love to see something centered around Christopher Marlowe. There's so much to work with...rise from humble birth, brilliance, career as a spy (double-agent?), success as a playwright, arrest for counterfeiting & near death brush there, conflicts with authorities, mysterious violent death/faked death at age 29....

But since Something Rotten is set in that period, I don't think there'd even be an opening for something like that for a very long time

And thinking a bit more out of the box, has there ever been a musical about a person behind one of the big scientific discoveries?

I'd love to see a musical about Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the telephone) with the participation of Deaf West. Alexander Bell has deep connection with the deaf community.

In "Submission Only" (the web serie), there was a musical about Thomas Edison. I know it's was a fictional musical, but it would be fun to see it come to life.

I would like to see a musical about the colonization of America (beginning with the french colonization). To see the shock culture between First Nations and Europeans. It's will be great to see honest representation of native american history on Broadway.

Updated On: 6/23/16 at 12:04 PM

backwoodsbarbie said: "Bombshell jokes aside, Marilyn Monroe



"

As much as I love the music of Smash I agree with this. Bringing Bombshell to Broadway wouldnt be terrible with an amazing book writer and songs that could be tied to the story of Bombshell and not to the story of Smash which is what I heard is the problem with almost every song except Second Hand Baby Grand.

usurper said: "I'd love to see something centered around Christopher Marlowe. There's so much to work with...rise from humble birth, brilliance, career as a spy (double-agent?), success as a playwright, arrest for counterfeiting & near death brush there, conflicts with authorities, mysterious violent death/faked death at age 29....

But since Something Rotten is set in that period, I don't think there'd even be an opening for something like that for a very long time



There already was an infamous flop Broadway musical about Christopher Marlowe, which was simply titled "Marlowe." It ran for 40 performances in the fall of 1981 and starred Patrick Jude as Marlowe, who was coming off the mega-bombs "Got Tu Go Disco" and "Charlie and Algernon." (Jude followed up Marlowe with his as of now final Broadway credit, "The News." The female lead was Lisa Mordente (Chita's daughter) and she managed to eek out the sole Tony nomination for Lead Actress in a Musical.



There are both audio and video of the show floating around and the book and lyrics are an absolute howl. It's like Hair (or rather Dude) meets The Pirate Queen meets good knows what. In Not Since Carrie, Mandelbaum asserts that it ran as long as it because there was mob money tied up in the show, but even that couldn't save it.

SnoopyQc said: "In "Submission Only" (the web serie), there was a musical about Thomas Edison. I know it's was a fictional musical, but it would be fun to see it come to life."



I refuse to accept any Thomas Edison musical that does not include Topsy the Elephant and this sequence.



<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ypqSHg1YvZA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



https://youtu.be/ypqSHg1YvZA

Kad, Maybe someone could musicalize The Nance?

"The Cold War is an interesting topic for a musical. "

There already is at least one musical about the cold war - Chess.

I'd love to see a work about Teddy Roosevelt.


Wasn't there a flop starring Len Cariou as Teddy? With the music of Sousa used Forrest/Wright style I believe.

I know this is going to sound ridiculous... but what about a musical about a founding father? Maybe like Alexander Hamilton or somebody? Just a shot in the dark.