Posted: 6/1/16 at 4:22pm
Would it be possible to take the script of Mother Courage, and put it to the music of Duke Special? This has been done in Deborah Warner's 2009 production of 'Mother Courage', but would it be possible to do this in a community setting?
Posted: 6/1/16 at 4:23pm
Only if Tonya Pinkins did it.
Posted: 6/1/16 at 4:25pm
Are rights and royalties available for it somewhere? Otherwise, I would say no. If you got permission to do Mother Courage, you wouldn't (likely) have permission to create a musical of it.
Posted: 6/1/16 at 4:25pm
Win!
Posted: 6/1/16 at 4:43pm
I got three kids, three kids, three-eeee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee kids.
Posted: 6/1/16 at 6:07pm
Take another look at the script. MOTHER COURAGE is already musicalized in the way its author/director intended. It's also one of the great works of Western theater and doesn't require gimmicks to be powerful.
Just do the play the way it was intended. It's not as if anyone has seen so many productions...
(ETA the above being said, I don't know what music is delivered when one buys the performance rights. It may be that one can substitute the music one prefers for whatever was done in the original production. But the OP makes it sound as if s/he wants to do an overall revisal. No. Just no. Reread the thread here about the production a few months ago where CSC Rep (IIRC) tried to turn the play into a literal representation of African warfare.)
Updated On: 6/1/16 at 06:07 PM
Posted: 6/1/16 at 6:09pm
The Kushner script can be licensed but not with Duke Special's songs. You could contact him direct via his website to see if it can be arranged. You'd probably have to get permission from Kushner too as the licensed script includes other lyrics.
Posted: 6/1/16 at 6:22pm
Does the Kushner version include sheet music?
Posted: 6/1/16 at 7:54pm
As previously stated, Mother Courage is already musicalized to perfection. To transform Mother Courage into a musical rather than a play with music would most likely destroy the point of the play. Brecht feared that plays/musicals could create empathy for almost any character depending on how they were depicted, which resulted in his famous "alienation" techniques, of which Mother Courage is the product. Mother Courage is not supposed to be a sympathetic character, and the use of actual songs (by Duke Special or most other composers) would only water down the powerful anti-war message of the play (which is the actual point of the show, not the tragedy of Mother Courage). The reason "Threepenny Opera" and "Happy End" work so well is the collaboration between Brecht and Weill, how they worked together to create the desired effect. I wouldn't say it could never work as a musical, but it would be a very specific composer with a very specific book writer/adapter.
Posted: 6/2/16 at 11:16am
When I saw a college production, they used the Kushner script, I believe, but did not use "music" per se. The songs were growled/shouted rhythmically over a stoming, clanking percussive beat- think "Rain Dogs" era Tom Waits.
Posted: 6/2/16 at 11:39am
I'd love to see a really cheesy Golden Age-style musical of Mother Courage. Call it Brave Mama, perhaps. Featuring such terrific songs as "I Have Two Sons" (reprised as "I Have One Son," then again as "I Have No Sons"
, "Kattrin's Banging' Her Drum," and out-Rose's-Turning Rose's Turn, "Silent Scream!"
