There is a decent show in there somewhere?

Steel Pier

copskid949 said: "I don’t understand the Legally Blonde thing. I’ve always liked it.

Anyways, Little Mermaid is a big example of one that’s already happened.

I honestly think Be More Chill has a LOT of potential to be great, but the campiness of the Broadway production really overshadowed the cool parts. The original production just feels much more earnest in its presentation, not some big event. It’s about an unimportant character, but the show as it was most recently presented carries a rock star vibe. It’s off putting for sure, but it looks like London’s marketing at least will scale it back a bit."

From what I've seen of each production of BMC, the 2.0 (Off-Broadway) production seems like the best. Enough tweaks to make the show better but not enough to overshadow the earnestness and humor. By the time they got to Broadway, the characters seemed like caricatures yet the show's plot was taken too seriously, making the show seem like a bunch of angsty teenagers whining about life. (And I am a teenager, so this isn't me being an older person who's "out of touch" with today's youth or whatever.) The Off-Broadway production seemed more professional and upscale than the original but still maintaining that huge heart of the original production.

Legally Blonde wasn’t downsized for the UK. It was the same production.

Mack and Mabel comes to mind, though I don't find the book as problematic as everyone else seems to. I'm still interested in seeing what Julie Taymor would've done with Spiderman. Also any bio-jukebox musical, since most of the people that they're about do seem to have interesting lives but you wouldn't know that from the musicals that were made (imo it was all downhill after Jersey Boys with a minor uptick in Beautiful). I also really enjoyed the Lightning Thief songs but I think the book decided to go with humor that was too broad and cheap, and they really could've scaled up many aspects of it while still keeping that scrappy charm.

Chess, obviously.

The Prom. The stuff with the high schoolers is really great, but I find the stuff with the Broadway actors to be completely insufferable.

Plannietink08 said: "Legally Blonde wasn’t downsized for the UK. It was the same production."

It was. The cast was reduced for one.

The big retool, that was cited as making it work better was that they focused more on Elle as a comic lead, than a belter who can do a bit of comedy. The show has always been an old fashioned musical comedy, at heart. Allowing Sheridan Smith to make Elle more in the mould of a Judy Holliday big warm hearted personality type, helped focus the show enormously.

hak5 said: "with a little tweaking and a completely redone Act 2 set, I believe Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would have been much better"

Gosh, just to build a little off this while I type up my own reply, that show was a shame because the West End show while still not great was a good base to build off of. It had good sets, it had good magic tricks (the reveal of Wonka at the factory and then his disappearance at the end were both INCREDIBLE), the Oompa Loompa costumes were pretty decent... it just needed some book work. It was like... they redesigned the Broadway production with the touring production in mind. As if they had no faith in it's chance on a New York Stage so rather than keep it big and impressive they trimmed it down from the start.

I have 2 that like I think about "what if" all the time with.

First one is Tuck Everlasting. Yes, it's a book that a lot of children read, but it's better then the overpriced children's theatre we got. There is actually a very DARK ending to the book involving Ma getting accused of murder and having to break her out of jail and such. I really felt like if they should have taken the material a but more serious, trimmed off the fat that was the obnoxious ever present chorus of random dancers in EVERY number, you could have devoted more time to a better ending that felt like it actually was a legit climax instead of just a rushed resolution.

Second one is Wonderland. I followed the development of the show thru all it's out of town tryouts and it really looked like they were working in each one towards something pretty decent. I was very excited for the show when it was coming in as the Alice as an overworked author heading into Wonderland after her neglected daughter is lured there first and her search for her daughter but finding something more along the way. It was interesting, it had a point. It still needed some work but all they had to do was improve upon what they had and tweek it. Naawwwwww scrap the idea that was already kinda working, make it allllll just a random nonsensical dream sequence-oh wait we need the daughter for these songs we already have written? Just find a random reason to get her there and then CUT the song anyway so having her there doesn't actually matter at all and make sure to explain nothing with logic cus it's Wonderland and make things way worse then it was even from the start of development. Those songs deserve SO much better then what it ended up being.