The big ol' original musical debate- Page 2

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/3/12 at 5:30pm

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

[bobbybaby85]

Posted: 2/3/12 at 5:43pm

Updated On: 2/19/18 at 05:43 PM

[broadwaybabywannabe2]

Posted: 2/3/12 at 5:59pm

1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE...the 1976 Bernstein/Lerner musical...totally original from all that i remember..it closed after only 7 performances and i happened to see one...lol...it was terrible...

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/3/12 at 6:37pm

No, that's no original. It's based on a pre-existing address!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 2/3/12 at 6:39pm

This will be a long thread.

Let's star with some tony award winning best musicals:

Book of Mormon
Memphis (the last two)
Redhead
Fiorello
Hallelujah, Baby
Avenue Q
Evita
Fiorello
Titanic
A Chorus Line
Kiss Me Kate (yes, a Shrew adaptation is the play within a play (musical within a musical), but the encompassing show is not a musical of Shrew)
Bye Bye Birdie
Company
The Music Man (Wilson may have toyed with the idea in sketches for years, but if we're going to count that as a basis for the derivative than what wouldn't be?)

Then let's consider a great many shows of the pre-Oklahoma era (exemplified by Of Thee I Sing, Funny Face, Me and My Girl, On Your Toes, Good News, Sally, Babes in Arms, Anything Goes, Strike Up the Band, The New Moon, Dubarry Was A Lady, The Desert Song, Lady, Be Good, etc.). Perhaps the majority of the Gershwin/Porter/Rodgers & Hart/Berlin/Kern oeuvres and that of their peers were original musicals, with many exceptions of course, notable among them Show Boat, Porgy and Bess, Pal Joey, The Boys from Syracuse, A Connecticut Yankee, No, No Nanette, etc.

Then there are original shows that are pastiches of the shows of that era such as Little Mary Sunshine and Dames at Sea.

And the list goes on (subject to definitions, but I have stayed away from revues and shows with original (or "original") books but borrowed scores, while including biographical musicals without putative sources, cf., King and I and Gypsy).

Funny Girl
Caroline, or Change
Falsettos
Tommy (yes it took a while to get to the stage but it was always theatrical)
Next to Normal
Lady in the Dark
Follies
Pippin
The Me Nobody Knows
Mack and Mabel
Song and Dance
They're Playing Our Song
Baby
Sarafina!
Passing Strange
The Scottsboro Boys
A Class Act
Parade
Side Show
The Life
Steel Pier
Starmites
Grind
Pump Boys and Dinettes
Runaways
The Lieutenant
Over Here!
Coco
How Now, Dow Jones
Stop The World - I Want to Get Off
The Roar of the Greasepaint...
No Strings
Can-Can
Happy Hunting
Milk and Honey
Irma la Douce
Do Re Mi
Plain and Fancy
Wildcat
Goldilocks
Sail Away








Updated On: 2/7/12 at 06:39 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 2/3/12 at 8:21pm

If Charles Gilbert's play didn't exist, Assassins wouldn't exist.

I'm sorry, bobby, but we can't know that. Plenty of writers have come to the theme without ever reading Gilbert. Weidman is a known history buff. Sondheim likes to write pastiche scores, etc. and so forth.

As for your attack on Sondheim's age and mental agility, I don't claim the man is infallible. But he does actually provide more specific detail in his account, and the plot he remembers from Gilbert has almost nothing to do with the book Weidman eventually crafted.

We don't even know that Weidman ever read Gilbert's play. If he did, neither of the existing accounts mention it.

In the end, the credit is what the credit is (as agreed to by all parties): "based on an idea by" does NOT mean "adapted from".

(ETA as for WEST SIDE STORY, I agree that the adaptation is so free, whether it can fairly be called an "adaptation" is open to argument. One might argue that for all Laurents' inventions, the story of R&J is so well known that it hovers over the evening nonetheless. But WSS is in no way analogous to ASSASSINS.) Updated On: 2/3/12 at 08:21 PM

[bobbybaby85]

Posted: 2/3/12 at 8:48pm

Sondheim Review - Charles Gilber Jr. Updated On: 2/19/18 at 08:48 PM

[AADA81]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 1:17am

I'm pretty sure that "Ankles Aweigh" was an original musical. I believe the Kean sisters said it was autobiographical.

Updated On: 2/4/12 at 01:17 AM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 1:45am

No mention of Company?

Oh I see Henrik finally mentioned it...)

Of course that was based on a series of one act plays by Furth but I don't think that counts as it was never mounted, the same way I dunno how anyone could argue Follies isn't original when The Girls Upstairs was never even finished and was by the same team.

I would include something like Into the Woods myself, but from the strict guidelines of many here I assume most wouldn't... Ditto Sunday int he Park with George (yes it's based on a painting but as has been said little is even known of Seurat's life). Has Road Show been mentioned? Evita? Grind (or was that an adaptation?) First Lady Suite?

I had no idea Ragtime was meant ot be a Fiddler sequel?? Really?

[bobbybaby85]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 2:06am

Updated On: 2/19/18 at 02:06 AM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 3:27am

LOL nono, trust me while I may not always come off as too bright on here, I am completely aware of what show Rags is and what show Ragtime is. :P And as you mentioned Rags and Fiddler share a same book author. I just didn't know there was any similarity except the theme and character name, not that it was officially ever called a sequel or potentially considered as one. Were Bock and Harnick ever approached, even though I know they had parted ways by then?

Re Company--exactly and that's why I think it counts lol. Prince was shown the plays and took it from there--in the interview during the televised Sam Mendes production it's implied that they plays weren't even completed (but this was Sondheim and even though that was fifteen years ago, he was still old and might not remember right :P )

[AADA81]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 4:53am

Every idea for a musical has to come from somewhere. But I think there is a significant difference between musicalizing "Sister Act" (which is not good) and "The Color Purple" (which is) because they are "known" commodities and choosing something like "I Am a Camera" or "The Light in the Piazza" because the authors want to rethink the material in musical and artistic terms. I can't imagine that Adam Guettel thought "Piazza" would be a "hot" property for Broadway tourists.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 4:32pm

Okay, bobby, I've read Gilbert's gracious article for the SONDHEIM REVIEW.

You neglected to mention that Gilbert admits he got the idea for an historical revue from Weidman and Sondheim's own PACIFIC OVERTURES in the first place!

You also neglected to mention that Gilbert continued to correspond with Sondheim and Weidman while they were conceptualizing their show, so it's not surprising if there was some cross-pollination of ideas.

Gilbert quite naturally sees the finished Sondheim/Weidman show in terms of Gilbert's own work and emphasizes the similarities. But his original script did not include Lee Harvey Oswald (even if Oswald was in the back of his mind) and Weidman's Proprieter is not Gilbert's Fat Man, even if Gilbert now sees similarities.

If anything, Gilbert's article is an excellent demonstration of how art is drawn from ideas from many sources, particularly when the art in question is as complex as a full-length musical.

But English is still English and theatrical tradition is still what it is: "based on an idea by" does not mean the work is an adaptation. Not even if, as seems possible, Weidman ended up using several of Gilbert's ideas. Not even if both Weidman and Gilbert were drawn to some of the same quotes from historical assassins.

If you read LOOK, I MADE A HAT, you'll find Sondheim discussing earlier plans to dramatize non-American assassins, such as Charlotte Corday. He describes how he and Weidman whittled down their overly ambitious original blueprint; that is NOT the process of "adapting" Gilbert's play.

And Gilbert says his script and tape were returned to him after the original contest. So unless you imagine Sondheim sneaking off to the copy machine to purloin somebody else's pages, we don't even know that he and Weidman had a copy of Gilbert's play when they set down to work.

[bobbybaby85]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 4:44pm

Updated On: 2/19/18 at 04:44 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 5:12pm

Jesus Christ, indeed! EVERY EFFING MUSICAL EVER WRITTEN started with an idea from someplace. If we therefore call them all "adaptations", then the word has no meaning.

YOUR idea would have merit if Gilbert were listed as a collaborator. He is not. He is credited with an idea. It might be a clue to you that even while claiming credit for a number of aspects, Gilbert does NOT call the Sondheim ASSASSINS an "adaptation of my play". (Surely you know that writers discuss their work with lots of people who aren't formally listed as collaborators and that they borrow ideas rather freely from those conversations.)

Gilbert knows what the word "adaptation" means.

There is a world of difference between Lerner sitting down with PYGMALION and trying to figure out how to turn it into a musical and Sondheim seeing a title and thinking, "A musical about assassins. What a good idea!"

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 5:34pm

"based on an idea by" does not mean the work is an adaptation.

THIS

Updated On: 2/4/12 at 05:34 PM

[bobbybaby85]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 5:40pm

Updated On: 2/19/18 at 05:40 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 5:45pm

baby, you should take a breath and reconsider some of your posts in this thread.

[bobbybaby85]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 5:53pm

Updated On: 2/19/18 at 05:53 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 5:56pm

Okay.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 7:04pm

In fact, bobby, according to Sondheim himself, it WAS the title that most piqued his interest. He saw the title on the script and thought, "What a great idea for a musical!" He recounts that moment in LOOK, I MADE A HAT.

I realize you have decided that Sondheim is a doddering old fool whose memory can't be trusted, but at least English is his first language. I'm beginning to wonder what yours might be.

***

As for the rest of your rant, I have no dog in those fights. I am not one who is decrying the dearth of "original" musicals. I'm well aware that most American musicals have been adaptations and the successful shows were none the worse for it. Somebody else will have to do a study as to whether adaptations are more or less likely to succeed than originals; personally, I don't really care.

I think the complaints about adaptations we hear nowadays are really complaints about the driving impulse for shows being the commercial value of name recognition RATHER THAN a genuine love of the source material and an original vision for how that material might be realized on the musical stage.

Your accusation that I have some sort of hidden agenda in favor of original musicals over adaptations is entirely a figment of your imagination.

What I do care about is language. If you are going to use your own, specially designed meanings for words, so be it. Just say so and define your terms at the top of each post.

But don't demand that the rest of us adopt your ideoglossia.

[Idiot]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 7:10pm

Because I had to and want to save you the time:

Idioglossia
An idioglossia is an idiosyncratic language invented and spoken by only one person or very few people.

[bobbybaby85]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 7:28pm

Updated On: 2/19/18 at 07:28 PM

[Idiot]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 7:52pm

(Wasn't snarking Bobbybaby. I was delighting in a word I'd never heard before.)

[bobbybaby85]

Posted: 2/4/12 at 8:13pm

Updated On: 2/19/18 at 08:13 PM