If You Could Make a Musical...

I've always wanted a Calvin & Hobbes musical. Starring NPH as Calvin and Roger Bart as Hobbes. Alas, I cannot write music.

Ah. I should research things. That makes me sad, though.

There already is an Edgar Allan Poe musical, btw.

"There was a Calvin and Hobbes musical workshopped a few years back, but Bill Watterson, the creator of the comics, is a devout anti-franchise person, and refused to give the rights to the property to anyone other than his published collections of strips."

I'm actually glad that he has held his ground on that. As he wrote in one of his forewords, he doesn't want an actor or a doll maker to "settle" the issue of Hobbes's reality (amongst many other reasons he has for being so anti-licensing).

That's good that the workshop took that approach. However, as to the suggestion that Neil Patrick Harris play Calvin I would say absolutely not to that. I would not want to see an adult play Calvin. Calvin needs an underlying innocence that I don't think any adult could actually bring to the role.

As for ideas of my own, I wish I was more adept at writing music as I would be working on a musical version of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I'm aware that there is a version floating around out there, but from what I've heard it seemed to take a more campy, wink to the audience approach. The movie already had its own element of 80s excess and I don't think it needs an extra layer of camp thrown on top of that. But the structure of the movie definitely lends itself to becoming a musical. A good futuristic prologue with Rufus sending us into an Overture that would transition back to the 1980s and introduce Bill and Ted, an "I Want" duet for Bill and Ted as they learn that Ted is being sent away to military school, and, well, I don't want to give all my thoughts and ideas away.

or Colleen Ballinger as Betty and Aaron Tveit as Henry.

In the late 1990s, I saw a film on Turner Classic Movies called "The Catered Affair" starring Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine and Debbie Reynolds and thought to myself this could probably make a good musical. Boy, was I proven wrong.

Updated On: 6/30/12 at 01:04 AM

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES (Lin Manuel Miranda composing; Lindsey Mendez leading)
MONSOON WEDDING (AR Rahman composing)
MISS PITTEGREW LIVES FOR A DAY
MRS DOUBTFIRE (Harvey Fierstein, Shaiman & Wittman; Norbert Leo Butz as Doubtfire)

^^^^I think Mark Rydell and Bette Midler covered that territory as well as it is going to be covered. She sings great blues; she dies. What's the story?

DOWN WITH LOVE

MOULIN ROUGE at a remodeled Mark Hellinger Theatre with bar service and pre-show entertainment. Designed by Catherine Martin.

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MISS PITTEGREW LIVES FOR A DAY
MRS DOUBTFIRE

^^^
Agreed! Beyond my wildest dreams!

Have we really reached a point where when BWW.COM posters are asked what would make a good musical, more than half immediately think of someone whose catalogue hasn't yet been exploited?

Patsy Cline, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse. No doubt Edit Piaf and Kurt Cobain will be along shortly.

I realize jukebox musicals will always be with us, but let's be clear: there was one, only one, good one, AIN'T MISBEHAVIN', and that was almost a half-century ago.

It saddens me that so many people immediately think of biographies with ready-made musical catalogues when they think "new musical". In fact, those aren't "new musicals"; they are revues of old material.

(old fart rant over)