When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway

This is a great article about the history of Superman on Broadway and how DC prevented the Dallas Theater revival (revisal?) from going any further. It seems like there's some hope at the end though for the project to fly again. (Sorry, couldn't resist).

Did anyone catch it in Dallas?

https://www.vulture.com/article/superman-broadway-musical-its-a-bird-flop.html

The original one is not pc enough as the bad guys were a hand of orientals.

Ouch. Hahaha. In 2020 we say Asian.

MrsSallyAdams said: "The show is oddly constructed. It attempts to ape the Adam West Batman show by making Superman a lunkheaded square. His songs are the worst in the score. Lois gets some clever songs but the best material goes to the villains and Linda Lavin's snarky secretary.

The plot involves the villains trying to humiliate Superman by inviting him to a pompous award ceremony while a major crime is happening off stage. Then the mad scientist character psychoanalyses him saying that he'll never overcome his guilt over his planet blowing up. This gets him to give up crime fighting. He snaps out of it when Lois is endangered, rescuing her and letting one of the villains die. In the end he whisks Lois away from her nice-guy boyfriend making him seem like a jerk."

Didn't ape the Batman t.v. show, at all--they both appeared at about the same time, within a month or so of each other. And Superman wasn't made into a lunkhead at all. What's sweet about his character is that the villains realize his need to be love his his Achilles heel. Superman's songs are great, especially "Doing Good" but also "The Strongest Man in the World."

I really liked Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's new book for the production in Dallas. I actually liked that he kept the original character names and just made Max Menken a Lex Luthor type instead of a columnist and wrote Lois as a little less of the damsel in distress she is in the original book. I thought the original book was unsalvageable, but the Encores! production made a pretty good case for it with just a few cuts here and there. Ultimately, for a commercial Broadway revival, I think Sacasa's book has the best chance for success if DC will ever allow it.

I saw the Dallas Theatre Center production. My father is a huge Superman fan (and saw the original Broadway production as a kid), and we flew there specifically to see it. I grew up with the cast recording, which I always thought had a few good songs, but was overall too cheesy. I also saw the TV movie version a long time ago. So basically, I came into the production being familiar with the show and already having some opinions about it. I thought the Dallas production was fun, but that there was no way it would ever go any further. Even with the new book, Superman is just a ridiculous idea for a musical (and I really like Superman).

They also cut the song "Revenge" (and the character who sings it), which was a shame. If the show had more fully committed to its own silliness like it did with that song, it might have been something. Otherwise, it's really just a very niche show for cross-over Superman/musical theatre nerds.

This is a wonderful article? It is so riddled with errors that it's a joke - not a funny joke. I mean, one person has pointed out ONE error - how can no one on a theater chat board like this not know what the others are? Happily, in the comments on the article someone has pointed out each and every one of them.

joevitus said: "The original book was perfect. Lois needs to be a damsel in distress. This isn't about rounded characters and modern sensibilities (even for 1966, when it was written). This is about Pop Art and reproducing a (remembered) sort of comic book with a light touch of irony in the reproduction."

I don’t have too many issues with the original book. As I said I liked Jack Viertel’s edits for the Encores! production. Compared with the original, he just made a few trims here and there to streamline some of the scenes and get to the songs faster. There was some new material written for Lois and Jim in act one before she sings “What I’ve Always Wanted.” I’m not sure where that extra dialogue came from or if he wrote it himself but it was nice. There was some new material for Max at the top of act two as well. He also rewrote Father Ling’s broken English and reduced the number of scenes the Flying Lings were in. Short of cutting the Flying Lings all together I’m not sure what else could have been done about that.