Medical world on stage?

[kelleymd]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 7:02am

Something has been puzzling me and perhaps you folks can offer some insight.
It seems that TV is saturated with medical dramas/comedies/dramadies but there has been no live theater devoted to such topics. Perhaps the medical world just doesn't sell? Doesn't fit the "tone" of a musical? Perhaps it is that writers and lyricists are so far removed from the medical world that the background to write a good piece isn't there? Just curious. I am an ER doctor who would love to write/consult on a script regarding the field of medicine, especially as it gives a unique and really raw awareness of people, suffering, hilarity and all of the elements which could make a great piece of theater. Just curious as to your thoughts :)

[Jon]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 9:16am

Actually, there was a stage play called "E/R" created by Chicago's Organic Theatre Company in the late 1970's. A comedy, it featured a large cast, some playing multiple roles, and depicted one night in the emergency room at a Chicago hospital. It was extremely sucessful, running over a year, and subsequently revived several times.

In the late 1980's, it was made into a sitcom starring Elliot Gould, Mary McDonnell, Conchata Farrell, Jason Alexander, and a young actor by the name of George Clooney. It lasted one season.

In the

[once a month]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 9:22am

I guess the plays Wings, about a stroke victim....and Whose Life Is It Anyways?, first with Tom Conte and then Mary Tyler Moore sort of relate. Neither were musicals, however.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 10:48am

Well, Sidney Kingley's MEN IN WHITE won the Pulitzer in 1934 and went on to be a film with Clark Gable about the moral quandries of a hot shot young surgeon

James Lapine's FRAN'S BED which ran at Playwright's Horizons last year, dealt with a woman in a coma and the impact of that on her family.

Arthur Kopit's WINGS explores the mind and imagination of a stroke victim

Dale Wasserman's ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST is set in a mental hospital.

Another Pulitzer prize winner Michael Cristopher's THE SHADOW BOX is set in a hospice for terminally ill cancer patients

[Jon]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 11:56am

Don't forget John Patrick's THE HASTY HEART - set in a mobile military hospital, Peter Nichols' THE NATIONAL HEALTH, set in a British hospital, William Finn's musical A NEW BRAIN, mostly set in a hospital, and the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical ALLEGRO, in which the central character is a small town doctor who moves to a large city to work at a fancy hospital.

[theatremom2]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 12:47pm

How about Wit, A New Brain, The Moonlight Room (?) or were you thinking only B'way.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 12:51pm

Feeling Electric's workshops have had a strong medical influence, although they're more psychological than physical health.

[tcoppola]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 12:57pm

ANGELS IN AMERICA (lots of it...)

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/31/06 at 1:13pm

The shows are out there.

A New Brain
Falsettos (Act 2 Falsettoland has hospital scenes and has a woman character who is a doctor)
Wit
Bad Habits by Terrence McNally

Updated On: 1/31/06 at 01:13 PM