has a TV show ever been turned into a Broadway show (musical or play)? The Golden Girls perhaps....

[merriwether]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 1:59pm

i was just thinking about this - movies and Broadway have a symbiotic relationship, as do books and Broadway - but what about TV?

i know "Odd Couple" was turned into a TV series, but has a TV show ever given birth to a Broadway venture?

aside from the off-broadway parodies of "Brady Bunch" and "Facts of Life".

i was thinking that "The Golden Girls" would make a really good musical - not so much in the tongue-in-cheek way as the off-broadway shows - but an old-fashioned book musical that happens to highlight 4 women who are no longer the ingenue.

thoughts? comments? diatribes?

[tazber]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 2:03pm

Happy Days was turned into a musical.

It isn't very good.

[merriwether]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 2:06pm

oh yes, forgot about the disaster that is happy days the musical

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 2:08pm

And the Addams Family is coming.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 2:08pm

Gilligan's Island and Brady Bunch have had musicals as well.

[Salene]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 3:01pm

Not Broadway, but two examples from abroad:
UK: Bad Girls
Australia/UK: Prisoner Cell Block H (Australian series, but UK productions - London and tour)

[singtopher]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 3:27pm

M*A*S*H is a play, though I'm not sure which came first.

(Edited to add the following)

I've always thought The Golden Girls should be a stage play. It would be such a hit regionally with bus loads of Red Hat ladies tipsy from wine coolers coming to see it. Interestingly enough, the real Golden Girls did a live performance for the Queen back in the day. Apparently Her Majesty was a fan of NBC's prime time shows in the late '80.

Updated On: 4/5/09 at 03:27 PM

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 3:33pm

Bewitched please!

Samantha: Kelli O'Hara
Darrin: J. Robert Spencer
Endora: Elaine Stritch
Larry Tate: Daniel Davis
Uncle Arthur: Gary Beach
Abner Kravitz: Philip Bosco
Gladys Kravitz: Jackie Hoffman

[merriwether]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 3:37pm

isn't it interesting though that theatre pulls from all these different sources (film, books, dance, song catalogs) but TV remains a fairly untapped resource (thank god!)

i assume its just because the scope of a tv show is fairly limited (1/2 hour or an hour to solve a conflict) where as the other medium have a broader scope and longer conflict resolution.

do you think that in the next 20 years we will see an explosion of tv on broadway? will there be "desperate housewives: the musical"? what might be after that, blogs or twitter as an inspiration for broadway?

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 3:47pm

Oh and how could I forget the stage version of Are You Being Served?

[singtopher]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 3:48pm

I do a agree with you merriwether. I think hour long programs would be the first to get musicalized since they have much more character development. As far as the internet goes, there was a thread awhile back about BWW: The Musical.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 3:50pm

I have such fond memories of that thread.

Schmerg, if you're reading this, what happened to that Freewebs site you made for it?

[merriwether]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 4:15pm

if there is a BWW: the musical will children&art appear? i hope so, i love him so!

[tourboi]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 9:33pm

Actually, the ADDAMS FAMILY musical isn't really based on the TV show which was far more on the silly side than the original comic strips. The musical is based on the comic strips.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 10:01pm

MOLLY, the dreadful musical that played a long preview period but closed after a handful of performances after opening was based on the TV series (and old radio show) "The Goldbergs". Kaye Ballard played Molly Goldberg.

[jordangirl]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 10:03pm

It's gotta be only a matter of time before Dick Wolfe ventures into theatre. Law and Order: The Musical anyone?

(No, I am not advocating it...just saying it's bound to happen.)

[singtopher]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 10:13pm

I suppose it's only fair that we let him. After all, he has employed a wealth of musical theatre actors.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 11:34pm

The Golden Girls was actually turned into an off-Broadway show(non-musical, called Golden Girls: Live!) in 2003. It featured an all-male cast of female impersonators performing scripts from the series. The show was so successful that it was scheduled to move to a larger theatre. Unfortunately, the play?s producers failed to secure proper legal permissions to use the characters and scripts and it was shut down.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 11:44pm

As far as the internet goes, there was a thread awhile back about BWW: The Musical.

Oh dear, how could I forget that?

I didn't actually make the freewebs site, so I don't know what the URL is... but I have the first thread saved on another site.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 11:48pm

[Trish2]

Posted: 4/5/09 at 11:54pm

Bewitched please!

Samantha: Kelli O'Hara
Darrin: J. Robert Spencer
Endora: Elaine Stritch
Larry Tate: Daniel Davis
Uncle Arthur: Gary Beach
Abner Kravitz: Philip Bosco
Gladys Kravitz: Jackie Hoffman

now THAT is the most inspired casting of the year !!!!

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 4/6/09 at 12:08am

Elaine Stritch is WAY too old for Endora. Endora is Samantha's mother NOT grandmother. La Stritch would be a delicious Aunt Clara.

La LuPone would be a scrumtious Endora.

[jeniferrenepatricia]

Posted: 4/6/09 at 3:15am

ACL2006- Yes, there was a run of "The Golden Girls Live" at Rose's Turn. It was performed by Peter Mac and John Schaffer (sp?). Peter Mac is the same actor/writer that recently had "Judy and Me" running on off-broadway.

[FlyingMonkey1223]

Posted: 4/6/09 at 3:25am

"Little House on the Prairie" was turned into a musical that is going to begin a national tour in October 2009. Even though it was based mainly on the books, television star Melissa Gilbert plays "Ma".

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/6/09 at 4:40am

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