Which american president's life would provide the best material for a musical?

I think it is probably an advantage if the president either was shot during the tenure or led the forces in a war (may the presidents and the victims of those wars rest in peace).

As far as i know, four presidents were shot to death.

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. James Abraham Garfield
3. William Mc Kinley
4. John F. Kennedy

Appearently William McKinley was an inspiration for the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz.

Overall i guess Abraham Lincoln is a great choice considering his class journey, winning of the civil war, abolition of slavery and dramatic death. Washington because he was a founding father and fought against the British. Roosevelt because of the depression and second world war and Kennedy because he was the first modern president and because he was murdered. George W Bush is of course also very interesting material.

Ok im sorry if this post come off as a bit tasteless but as i see it a lot of tastelessnes dissappears with time. With that i don't mean that dead people shouldn't be respected, they definetely should but it becomes more accepted to deal with tragic aspects of peoples lifes after they have been dead for several years. There is a famous opera by Giuseppe Verdi which is about the murder of the swedish king Gustav III. At its premiere they felt it was safest to change the story so that it was about a british colonial governor in Boston. In this century the opera has been performed many times with the original true story. This year in Sweden it was performed but with the action changed so that it was about the swedish primeminister Olof Palme who was shot 20 years ago. This of course created controversy and was critiqued by some relatives to him but it nonetheless was performed.

Updated On: 10/19/06 at 06:31 PM

1776.

Updated On: 10/19/06 at 06:32 PM

I read somewhere that the Wizard of Oz was not really based on McKinley and it was just a teacher who used the stiry to explain late 19th early 20th century politics. I don't know though. His life would make a cool musical.

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There was a JFK musical done in Chicago in the early 1980's. It was titled ONE SHINING MOMENT. The concept was a "show within a show" about a group of college students creating a show about JFK (hmmm... a little like "Merrily We Roll Along"...).

The cast included Kevin Anderson as JFK, Megan Mulally as Jackie, and Alan Ruck as LBJ.

"After all Jefferson is the man who raped and fathered children with his 13 year old slave-girl sister-in-law."

Is it just me, or does it sound like Jefferson and the slave-girl spent time raping children and fathering them together?

Not that being with a 13 year old isn't rape anyway - just a poor sentence structure.

I think they should do a musical on William Henry Harrison -- hell, at least it'd be short!

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Actually,

Clinton's life is pretty damn interesting.

Dad died before he was born, stepdad was a drunk who abused his mom and his half-brother, meets JFK while a teen, put himself through school, becomes a Rhodes scholar.

Becomes Govenor or Arkansas, and then loses, then wins, and eventually becomes President.

All of the scandals.

Impeachment.

Heart surgery.

And now, as an "elder statesman" of the Democratic party, redemption and as the builder of a global charity.

Picture Nixon standing by the helicopter before leaving the White house and singing "Don't cry for me USA"

Just checkout the Capitol Steps.

I'm sorry, but if ever a president lent himself to fodder for a musical comedy, it would be Nixon. Imagine the production number that could be built around "I Am Not a Crook!" (And the word "crook" just rhymes with so many words.)

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Lincoln already had a musical, too. I don't know anything about it, except that it existed and that its existence frightens me.

If you can find it, check out Adams' NIXON IN CHINA, an opera about Nixon opening relations with his trip to Beijing. Written in the mid-80s, it's a pretty amazing piece of work.

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CLINTON

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Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce already have Pacific Overtures.