If Any Other Musical Were To Win The Pulitzer...- Page 2

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 2:46pm

The year in which they were eligible is beside the point. GREY GARDENS and CAROLINE OR CHANGE would be dull unimaginative and uninteresting showcases for divas in search of a Tony in any year, and neither was worth the space they took up in their respective theatres.

[Drunk Chita Rivera]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 2:49pm

Sunday in he Park With George, because it's Sunday in the Park With George

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 2:52pm

Without a doubt, CAROLINE.

It's a much more complex and intricate piece of work than GREY GARDENS. There is no comparison, in my opinion. CAROLINE is a far better show than GREY GARDENS.

[OrdinaryJukebox]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 2:52pm

So, "Caroline, or Change" is your all time favorite musical too, Roscoe??? hehe

-Vincent

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 2:53pm

HOTT FEET, clearly.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 2:54pm

Caroline
1776
Hair (when it was off broadway the year before)
Grey Gardens
For Colored Girls...
West Side Story
Show Boat

Updated On: 9/22/08 at 02:54 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 2:59pm

I think GREY GARDENS didn't win a Pulitzer at least partly because its author had recently won an equally undeserving Pulitzer for another wildly undeserving play, I AM MY OWN WIFE.

I wonder if the play's nearly verbatim lifting of much of the second act from the vastly superior film wasn't also a concern. If Doug Wright was going to get the Pulitzer again, wouldn't the Mayseles and the Beales themselves be deserving, since they came up with fully half the dialogue?

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 3:04pm

That's the thing, though, Roscoe. It isn't verbatim.

The lines from the documentary are restructured and organized into a dramatic story that didn't exist in the film. It uses the lines (as anyone might use source material) and creates songs, scenes and a linear structure... from freeform "sound bites."

I think it's one of the best film-to-stage adaptations ever. If not THE best.

By the way... we're heading toward the end of the first decade in this new millennium, and we don't have a musical as a Pulitzer winner. That would be the first time since the 1940s that that's happened.


EDIT: And with the likes of Legally Blonde, Shrek, Poppins and Cry Baby as the norm now, I'm thinking it's a done deal. Pass on the 2000s!

Updated On: 9/22/08 at 03:04 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 3:08pm

Yeah, it is restructured all right, best. Wright takes a fascinating and moving and disturbing film and turned into an unfascinating, unmoving and undisturbing weepie of a show.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 3:09pm

To each his own.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 3:25pm

Yeah, yeah, Roscoe. You lost me when you called CAROLINE, OR CHANGE unimaginative and uninteresting.

Besty, I very much agree with you re GREY GARDENS. The way Wright used the dialogue from the film and weaved it into a haunting, humorous, and creative storyline was fantastic. I would have been pleased if it had won a Pulitzer, but in that case I don't think it was as much of a travesty as when CAROLINE, OR CHANGE didn't even get nominated (I believe it was eligible for the year that ANNA IN THE TROPICS won).
CAROLINE, OR CHANGE is easily one of the most poignant and painfully real plays about America and American issues that are still incredibly relevant today. Tesori's music is truly brilliant and Tony Kushner proves that he is probably the best American playwright alive. His lyrics are poetry. I can't listen to "Lot's Wife" without getting chills, it's just perfection.

Posted: 9/22/08 at 3:29pm

Sunday DID win the Pulitzer. The list is:

Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing (1932), Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (1950), Bock & Harnick's Fiorello! (1960), Frank Loesser's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1962), Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line (1976), Stephen Sondheim's and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George (1985), and Jonathan Larson's Rent (1996).

I can't remember what the qualifications are- I think it's supposed to say something profound about the American condition or some such. Maybe Ragtime. 1776.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 3:30pm

Ray, honey. You lost me when you called CAROLINE OR CHANGE poignant and painfully. To you it was. To me it was a bore, a big uninteresting bore, complete with singing appliances. How imaginative. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 3:30pm

Falsettos

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 3:40pm

Well, the qualifications are pretty loose, and can be disregarded if the judges decide to. The work should preferably address American themes. Accent on "preferably" rather than "must."

[She_Had_Refinement]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 4:17pm

Gypsy... 4 Bway revivals... it deserves a coronation.

Posted: 9/22/08 at 4:33pm

Falsettos! Indeed! I'd take Rent's away and give it to Falsettos if I could.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 4:53pm

In 1965 rumor was that Fiddler was a very close runner-up to The Subject Was Roses.

However two musicals, Fiorello and How to Succeed..., has just won in 60 and 62 and factoring in a few years when there was no award, the Pulitzer board did not want to honor a third musical in 6 years.

Edit:
1960 Fiorello!
61 All the Way Home (the only straight play winner in a five year period)
62 How to Succeed...
63 no award (the year of the Virginia Woolf scandal)
64 no award
65 The Subject Was Roses

Updated On: 9/23/08 at 04:53 PM

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 5:31pm

Folks, just be patient. Roscoe has to post at least 1000 times his epic disdain for each particular great film or musical he despised. This too shall pass.

I'll add to the Falsettos love as well.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 5:42pm

I hate how much politics are involved with it. If it is the best, give it to them. Fiddler is a very good musical. It's book is well written and the music is great - not a bad song in the bunch, I'd say.

Falsettos is a great musical, and probably just got over looked. I'm not sure what could be considered a Pulitzer prize winning musical nowadays. Seems like the artsy, compelling musicals are slowly dying out. I'm hesitant to bring up [Title of Show], but I thought it was brilliant in its simplicity. It wasn't trying for metaphors or anything, just a straight forward story.

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 5:45pm

Another vote for Caroline or Change. And it should have also won the Tony that year for Best Musical. The show just blew me away.

Updated On: 9/22/08 at 05:45 PM

[bwayfan9]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 5:46pm

wow! A lot of Caroline Or change!! I never saw the show so i wouldn't know.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 5:54pm

I think that "Oklahoma!" won an honorary Pulitzer in 1944. I think the reason it had to be honorary was because it wasn't eligible for a regular one, being an adaptation of a theatrical work. Does that sound right?

[bwayfan9]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 6:00pm

rent was an adaption of theatrical work, La Boheme

[Kad]

Posted: 9/22/08 at 7:30pm

Falsettos for addressing such emotional and, at the time, fairly taboo topics with such wit, humor, and heart. In terms of musicals dealing with AIDS, give me Falsettos over RENT any day. In fact, I'd say give me Falsettos over many musicals.