How many original shows are playing on Broadway right now?

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:23pm

And by original, I mean not based on a book, movie, already existing pop catalogue or past Broadway or Off-Broadway production. Off the top of my head, that leaves us with:

Spelling Bee
Doubt
Avenue Q
Brooklyn
Rent (has been playing nearly nine years)
The Pillowman

That's all I got. Everything else that I can think of is either a revival, based on a book or movie, or uses a pop catalogue. Does this strike anyone else as a little bit... sad? Aside from actually getting it produced, how is it possible that of all the plays and musicals running, only SIX are or were completely original?

Edited to say that I did count Rent without thinking that it too was a re-make of a popular opera. It's very different, but I suppose even it necessarily wouldn't have to be counted.

Updated On: 4/13/05 at 02:23 PM

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:26pm

edit. you got it.

but it actually surprises me that there are that many. it gets said over and over: original musicals are the exception. not the rule... Updated On: 4/13/05 at 02:26 PM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:31pm

Completely original musicals are extremely rare. If you look at the history of musical theatre, about 90% of all musicals were based on previously existing material. Plays, however, are a different matter.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:37pm

Rent is based on an opera, though. I guess it depends how far you want to go in considering something "unoriginal," but someone in my school's paper just wrote a HUGE editorial on how "unoriginal" Broadway is, and why that's making it "boring." Her biggest problem was her misinformation, in saying that Piazza and The Mambo Kings were the "only" new shows this season that were original, when by her arguments, they're not - Piazza is based on a novel, and was also a film, and The Mambo Kings was also both a novel and film. Her second problem was that she wasn't strict enough in her categorization, and used "unoriginal" as far too much of an undefined, blanket term, AND declared everything that's "unoriginal" inherently bad. What about something like Brooklyn, though? It's original, but also bad. Then she continued on to say that the only "good" shows on Broadway now are Wicked, Rent and Avenue Q. Her only explanation was that they're "good." She didn't say why, but just stated that they were good and entertaining and that she loved them. By her own standards, they should be bad, then. Anything "unoriginal" - based on something already existing, or something done before in any capacity (which, then, should we count revivals as "bad" and "unoriginal" theatre?) - is bad. Rent is based on an opera, Wicked on a novel, and Avenue Q may not exist had there not been children's shows like Sesame Street that came before by which the Q creators could've been inspired.

Anyway, there's my psuedo-rant on the issue, because it's related, sort of. I think the "unoriginal"/"original" thing is a bit of a Catch-22, because it totally depends upon how you define it. But, the truth is that most big, commercial theatre now is in some capacity based on something else. There are very few things that are *truly* original. And yes, I also find it pretty sad.

[umgeoboy]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:40pm

Spelling bee is also based on a play (which I forget the name of currently sorry). And as said above Rent is based on LaBoheme so that is not original either.

I would add Democracy.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:48pm

Spelling Bee is based on "C-r-e-p-u-s-c-u-l-e". (Ironically, I think I missepelled that) Rent is based on La Boheme. Doubt is based on actual events-- does that count?

And frankly, who cares? This whole "Unoriginal" slam just seems to me to be another way to insult a show you don't care for. The source material doesn't matter to me, and I'd say it doesn't matter to an audience either. A show is good or bad- anything beyond that doesn't matter.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:49pm

DEMOCRACY is suggested from actual events, as well.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:50pm

it's not something new either. musicals were always an adaptive art form. it's tough to really find a musical that isn't based on some kind of preexisting form of entertainment or material...

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:51pm

It's not a slam at all. Just something I found interesting. I'm not even calling them "un-original", I'm just saying that they aren't entirely original, and are based on other works. Many of the shows based on other things ARE original in their own ways, but I'm talking the root and basic ideas. How often are movies, television shows, novels, based on things that already exist? Hardly as often, I bet. Just wanted to get some discussion going, I don't think it's a bad thing, I just wonder WHY there's so few, and if it has always been a trend.

[umgeoboy]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:53pm

yes but you used the word sad which does imply that it is a bad thing.

Broadway has always had it's roots in other forms of media (ie. books, movies, tv, current events...etc). It's not sad, it is how it has been.

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:53pm

Well, most things are based on events, or at least pre-existing ideas, it's almost impossible to escape that. I'm talking things based on already created works. So, Democracy and Doubt wouldn't count, because there were no other medium that already existed to tell the story.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:55pm

I think there's a difference between loosely basing a show on an opera, and raiding a musician's catalogue and slapping a plot on it. Everything that is created is inspired by something, but some shows are more directly inspired than others. Is that bad? Maybe, when we start with Law & Order: The Musical, featurning songs from The Police. But until then, I guess we can only do our best to support the original shows, in hopes that it will catch on.

I think shows like Good Vibrations, All Shook Up and Mama Mia are just lazy. They're too worried about having a show that people will like, so they bust out with the "Greatest Hits" collection and guarantee themselves a few months run, based solely on the popularity of the songs everyone already loves.

The thing that bothers me the most is this new occurance of movies based on musicals that were based on movies. Both The Producers and Hairspray took a movie and made it into a musical. That's fine, they're great shows. But is it really necessary to turn it back into another movie? I refuse to let my future kids ever think Nathan Lane originated the role of Max Bialystock.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:56pm

I beg to differ. almost everything we as Americans see on TV is based on a British television program and a lot of movies are made without even being said that they are remakes. For example one I saw recently "Man on Fire"... I saw the ORIGINAL movie after I saw the remake with Denzel not even having known it was a remake.

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:56pm

That's kind of what I'm getting at, there's just a lot of rehashing of things that already exist. Granted, a lot of it ends up being good and entertaining, so again, it's not BAD, but the lack of fresh ideas is a little bit perturbing, at times.

[umgeoboy]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:58pm

My point is that this is not a new point! Broadway has always done this. Go back in history and composers were always boring movie, or book plots as theirs to write a musical about. Sondheim has done it, kander and ebb did it, Rogers and Hamerstein did it! It's not new!

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 2:59pm

well, it's not like Zero Mostel really originated the role of Max Bialystock. Mel has said time and time again that the character was based on someone he really knew...

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 3:03pm

But where do you draw the line? Is Avenue Q unoriginal, because it bases some of its humor on our society's collective experience of watching Sesame Street growing up? I think the term "unoriginal" can only really be used accurately when comparing two shows with each other.

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 3:07pm

That's what I think is interesting about it. I honestly am not particularly bothered by it, I just think it's interesting that we're at a point that most things can't be all that original anymore. I'm sorry if it's too old of a point to discuss, we can pretend I never brought it up then. But yeah, there is a line and it is really hard to draw. I certainly don't know where it is, or if it even exists!

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 3:10pm

not ANYMORE. it was ALWAYS that way... even the list of original musicals can be argued. The Rocky Horror Show for example could be called an original musical because the author sat down and invented the characters himself, he didn't write songs for preexisting characters from a movie or book, but the show itself is a send up that reflects all the second rate B horror/sci fi movies of the day so is it really original?
Updated On: 4/13/05 at 03:10 PM

[Madame X]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 3:11pm

GirlfriendfromCanada - you keep moving your line. You can include some works (Rent), but not others (Doubt)?

Threshold of revelation.

JoeKv99: And frankly, who cares? This whole "Unoriginal" slam just seems to me to be another way to insult a show you don't care for. The source material doesn't matter to me, and I'd say it doesn't matter to an audience either. A show is good or bad- anything beyond that doesn't matter.

Word.

Updated On: 4/13/05 at 03:11 PM

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 3:12pm

I think the only way to have something truly "original" anymore is to have feral children writing Broadway shows. Otherwise, SOMETHING would had to have influenced them at some point.

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 3:16pm

Good point, orangeskittles.

I don't HAVE a line. I wanted to see what other people's lines were. I really didn't make the post to make myself feel stupid, I do that enough involuntarily as it is. Originally, I just wanted to discuss the idea using shows that weren't based on movies, books and novels, but it stretched quite a bit away from that, and alas.

[BAREly_Wicked]

Posted: 4/13/05 at 3:22pm

what about steel magnolias? it was originally a play on broadway before the movie, the movie just made it famous