Shows that would have been great with a different composer — Page 2

As with any show that has been adopted multiple times (Wild Party, Phantom) there is always a winner and a loser. There is always an interest of what might have been, but especially for a show like Sunday, where it is not adapted from a piece but rather an overlaying idea around a piece, it seems a little silly as Sunday woud never have been written without Lapine and Sondheim. It is worth mentioning though, that, knowing Rodgers and Hammerstein, I suspect they would have made the first act the entire show, and ended with Georges and Dot reunited. Because of the surrealist seond act (something I doubt Hammertein would have ever thought of) it is just not a piece for R&H. And as the entire payoff of the show is te seond act, what's the point?
If I were to pick, I woud want a better team for the Addams Family. Lippa and co. just write an inferior version of La Cage and removed what made the Addams memorable.

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Updated On: 12/21/14 at 01:56 AM

Different strokes for different folks
And I was just clarifying because I thought you might have misunderstood the topic.
Like I asked before, do you have an option on what shows would have been better in a different approach?

ALW tried to get Alan Jay Lerner to work on the book or lyrics (I don't remember which -- maybe it was both) of The Phantom of the Opera. Alas, Mr. Lerner got cancer before he could really get going, and died shortly after he dropped out of the project.

Had AJL been able to take part in POTO, we might have seen the back story that other versions often include, such as the music lessons. As it is, there is no clue in the ALW version about why Christine is so frightened by her teacher, the Angel of Music, and about how he became her teacher. In my opinion, ALW's POTO did not need a sequel, but a PREQUEL might have been useful.

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I actually would have loved to have seen Phantom done as an actual opera around the time of the novel's publication, possibly by Puccini.

In my opinion, ALW's POTO did not need a sequel, but a PREQUEL might have been useful.

Hijacking the thread for a moment to say that many "phans," as they call themselves, also wished for a prequel, based on Susan Kay's Phantom to be specific.

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I think the most intriguing notion listed here is the idea of GIANT done by Kern. I see why the idea arose, what with it being another Ferber epic written around the same time as SHOW BOAT.

For the record I adore the musical of GIANT that we have, but I find it fascinating to think how different but also glorious it could have been if done as something of a follow up to SHOW BOAT with the same team.

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I wish those "What If" clips that were posted up thread were more entertaining. They're sort of boring. The most interesting thing was finding out Amy Adams (yes that Amy Adams) designed the costumes.

What a bizarre thread. OF COURSE, any Sondheim show would have been better without Sondheim in Fantod's opinion.

What's more bizarre, it that Jerome Kern died seven years before GIANT was published, and that Arthur Schwartz was long gone before the novel WICKED was published. So how the hell could they have adapted source material that didn't EXIST when they were alive?


Another useless thread by "Son of After Eight"...no, I'm sorry...Fantod.

Obviously this was just a fun thread. More of a what if than actual possibilities. Also, I do not hate Sondheim as a composer, in fact I like a lot of his work. I also don't hate Sunday in the Park With George. I find the show rather dull, and I think that a more romantic approach to the show could have benefitted it, but as it stands it isn't bad. And I wouldn't want to see A Little Night Music or Pacific Overtures with music by anybody else. It's funny how anytime anybody says anything negative about Sondheim, people automatically assume that they hate him. I find him to be an extremely interesting composer, and I appreciate a lot of his work more than I like it, but in the end I am just kind of in the middle with him. I neither hate nor love his work.

Of course we almost had Annie Get Your Gun by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields.

And I was amazed to read the following last night on Wikipedia:

"Sandy Wilson, who had achieved success with The Boy Friend in the 1950s, had completed the book and most of the score for Goodbye to Berlin, his adaptation of I Am a Camera, when he discovered that producer David Black's option on both the 1951 Van Druten play and its source material by Christopher Isherwood had lapsed and been acquired by Harold Prince. Prince commissioned Joe Masteroff to work on the book. When Prince and Masteroff agreed Wilson's score failed to capture the essence of late-1920s Berlin, John Kander and Fred Ebb were invited to join the project."

Also, Sondheim briefly considered writing a musical version of The Visit for Angela Lansbury as well as a musical based on Sunset Boulevard.

Updated On: 3/15/15 at 06:11 AM

I don't know that they would have been better, but I would love to hear:

"Carrie" - Stephen Sondheim
"Bullets Over Broadway" - Jerry Herman

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The Sandy Wilson "Welcome To Berlin" demo is in circulation, and is rather fascinating in light of how brilliant and iconic CABARET would become.

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I would like to hear what Sondheim's interpretation of Sunset Boulevard was. I also wonder what shows like West Side Story and Gypsy would be like if Sondheim had written the music as well as the lyrics.
I guess Sondheim was also approached with the idea for Parade and turned it down.