Novels to base a musical on?! — Page 2

Imagine it...Series of Unfortunate Events musical. That should brighten one's day.

I'm pretty sure it was never recorded or published anywhere. It was a piece that was constantly being revamped in desperate attempts to make it into a good show before it reached Broadway.

The critics destroyed the show during out of town tryouts and Merrick basically cleaned house and had the book rewritten after Boston. Truman Capote apparently saw the show and denounced the music and the casting of Mary Tyler Moore. This led to a brand new bookwriter (Albee), a new director, and a bunch of new supporting cast members. The title was changed from "Holly Golightly" to "Breakfast At Tiffany's" which boosted advance sales due to the film's success. after the 1st few previews at the Majestic (Phantom), Merrick made history by pulling the plug in spite of good sales- basically announcing that it was an awful show and it was his fault- not the writers'- for even having the idea. He did not want to subject people to the bad product or endure what would be caused by it. It's hard to imagine such honesty from a Broadway producer these days. Anyway, the point is, it ran only 4 previews before Merrick flushed it- so probably only Mandelbaum has access to the material today. Of course, all of this info comes straight from Mandelbaum, without whom I wouldn't know a thing. Anyone else have any info on this?

sorry to thread-jack. let's see, novels...

Kimmy, I think FIGHT CLUB would actually be fantastic as a musical if done right. That's a Pascal role if there ever was one.

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NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I want to write Anthem: The Musical (or Opera, I haven't decided)!!!

OK, how about you write the music and lyrics, and I'll write the book and direct? :)

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Pride and Prejudice was alrady a musical - called "First Impressions", it flopped on Broadway inthe 1950's.

Basically, anything 100 years old or more is in the public domain. That's why there have been at least a half dozen musicals based on Phantom of the Opera, two differeent Secret Gardens, several versions of Hunchback of Notre Dame, Huckleberry Finn, Wuthering Heights, Little Women, the Three Musketeers, etc.

Check out "Why I live at the P.O." by the late-great Eudora Welty. This classic American short story is a hoot- there are a lot of potential diamonds there- just waiting to be polished .

I think it's great that you are interested in honing your gifts as a future musical theatre writer.

Just a couple of suggestions along the lines of what some other people have said. I would strongly recommend that you pick something that is in the public domain. There are thousands of great properties to chose from, and I'm off the belief that even if you are writing this as an exercise, you should always work towards writing something that you can actually do something with.

Writing a musical based on a book or a movie or short story that you don't have the rights to, from a business standpoint, is a waste of time.

I've known several composers and writing teams that have attempted to musicalize works like THE GREAT GATSBY thinking that they would write something so terrific, the estates would gladly give them the rights once they saw it. No dice. Doesn't work that way. The rights to stage adaptation can be very complicated.

And my second bit of advice, is to focus on something that is plot based. Stories like THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA which are character studies are a lot more difficult to do successfully then stories with classic plots like WEST SIDE STORY or THE WOMAN IN WHITE.

Good luck to you!

The awakening by Kate chopin

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"The Lovely Bones"
"A Clockwork Orange"
"Beloved"
"House of Sand and Fog"
"Lord of the Flies"

MYSTERIOUS SKIN by Scott Heim - recently turned into a film (that I haven't seen), but the themes are very powerful and would lend themselves well to a musical

ETHAN FROME by Edith Wharton

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray - that is one fantastic idea, perfectliar! I want tickets now! The Irish Rep did an outstanding production a couple of years ago - with minimalist staging, as their productions must be of necessity - creative and effective.

EponineThenardier's avatar gave me this idea - The Last Unicorn. I think there was music in the animated movie that was made of it, but I would love to see it as a musical - what a choreographer would do with the unicorns set loose from the sea foam - wow!! How would the red bull be portrayed? And the unicorn herself? Fascinating challenges. And since the unicorn spends a great deal of the story transformed into the human Lady Amalfi, it would not be impossible. The music would be haunting, evocative.

Okay, I'm gushing - I'm outta here.

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Updated On: 5/28/05 at 02:41 PM